Sergio

“You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.”
― Nelson Algren, Nonconformity: Writing on Writing

“My way of learning is to heave a wild and unpredictable monkey-wrench into the machinery.”
― Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon