As many people die from an excess of timidity as from bravery.
Since great writers communicate a vision of existence, one can’t borrow their methods. The method is married to the vision.
Chicago is the great American city, New York is one of the capitals of the world, and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic; San Francisco is a lady.
Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.
I hate everything which is not in myself.
What’s not realized about good novelists is that they’re as competitive as good athletes. They study each other – where the other person is good and where the person is less good. Writers are like that but don’t admit it.
Nearly everything in the scheme of things works to dull a first-rate talent. But the worst probably is cowardice.
The world’s not what I want it to be. But then no one ever said I had the right to design the world.
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.
The ultimate tendency of liberalism is vegetarianism.