Writing sustains me.

Many, many years ago, (circa 1980) when I was hunting through Kafka's stories, diaries, letters, et al., looking for the secrets and the magic of art, I was stopped dead in my tracks by this:

"Writing sustains me. But wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it sustains this kind of life? Which does not, of course, mean that my life is any better when I don't write. On the contrary, at such times it is far worse, wholly unbearable, and inevitably ends in madness. This is, of course, only on the assumption that I am a writer even when I don't write – which is indeed the case; and a non-writing writer is, in fact, a monster courting insanity."

– Franz Kafka to Max Brod, July 5, 1922