I am convinced the most unfortunate people are those who would make an art of love. It sours other effort. Of all artists, they are certainly the most wretched.
The women’s movement is filled with tyrants, just as men’s political movements are equally filled.
Comfortless was my religion, anxiety of the anxieties, for I believed God was not love, but courage. Love came only as a reward.
What is there about polarity that is matter becoming more complex?
The only journey of knowledge is from the depth of one being to the heart of another.
I certainly do have this feeling of affection for the absolute sense of intellectual freedom that exists as a live nerve, a live wire, right through the center of American life.
You can’t be a serious writer of fiction unless you believe the story you are telling.
Did a sense of shame ever reside in our Republican toadies? You can’t stop people who are never embarrassed by themselves. Will’s readiness to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse can be cited as world class sycophancy.
The sole virtue of losing your short-term memory is that it does free you to be your own editor.
You’re gambling with something vital. Most writers get smashed egos.
If you can change style, why stick to one style? Style is a vanity because it gives you product identification.
There are two kinds of brave men: those who are brave by the grace of nature, and those who are brave by an act of will.
The ultimate tendency of liberalism is vegetarianism.
I take it for granted that there’s a side of me that loves public action, and there’s another side of me that really wants to be alone and work and write. And I’ve learned to alternate the two as matters develop.
I become an actor, a quick-change artist, as if I can trap the Prince of Truth in the act of switching a style.
I do believe that America’s deepest political sickness is that it is a self-righteous nation.
A really good style comes only when a man has become as good as he can be. Style is character. A good style cannot come from a bad undisciplined character.
Only another writer can know how much damage writing a novel can do to you. It’s an unnatural activity to sit at a desk and squeeze words out of yourself.
Television is coitus interruptus brought into aesthetics.
The way you write affects what you say.