A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean question: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well – or ill?
Perhaps it takes courage to raise children...
Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.
Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.
I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything.
I’ve lived in good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. I like weather rather than climate.
One can find so many pains when the rain is falling.
Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard.
I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.
And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.
Anything that just costs money is cheap.
Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.
Once you have lived in New York and made it your home, no place else is good enough.
The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.
Thoughts are slow and deep and golden in the morning.
I guess there are never enough books.
How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?
Evening of a hot day started the little wind to moving among the leaves. The shade climbed up the hills toward the top. On the sand banks the rabbits sat as quietly as little gray, sculptured stones.
And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing that a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus.
An answer is invariably the parent of a whole family of new questions.