I thought that all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be.
Going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that.
You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad.
Oh, darling, I’ve been so miserable.
But after I got them to leave and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn’t any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.
It’s all nonsense. It’s only nonsense. I’m not afraid of the rain. I am not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn’t.
Something, or something awful or something wonderful was certain to happen on every day in this part of Africa.
Bigotry is an odd thing. To be bigoted you have to be absolutely sure you are right and nothing makes that surety and righteousness like continence. Continence is the foe of heresy.
Have faith in the Yankees my son. Think of the great DiMaggio.
He had loved too much, demanded too much, and he wore it all out.
In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.
I wanted to try this new drink: That’s all we do, isn’t it – look at things and try new drinks?
A wine shop was open and I went in for some coffee. It smelled of early morning, of swept dust, spoons in coffee-glasses and the wet circles left by wine glasses.
Read anything I write for the pleasure of reading it. Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading.
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.
Do not think about sin, he thought. There are enough problems now without sin. Also I have no understanding of it.
He did not care for the lying at first. He hated it. Then later he had come to like it. It was part of being an insider but it was a very corrupting business.
I love thee and thou art so lovely and so wonderful and so beautiful and it does such things to me to be with thee that I feel as though I wanted to die when I am loving thee.
Until you’re grown-up they send you to reform school. After you’re grown-up they send you to the penitentiary.
We need more true mystery in our lives Hem- he said. The completely unambitious writer and the really good unpublished poem are the things we lack most. There is of course the problem of sustenance.