There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.
The main reason for rewriting is not to achieve a smooth surface, but to discover the inner truth of your characters.
Art has to do with the arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.
She was what we used to call a suicide blonde – dyed by her own hand.
A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.
For the first time in history, the human species as a whole has gone into politics. Everyone is in the act, and there is no telling what may come of it.
Retirement is an illusion. Not a reward but a mantrap. The bankrupt underside of success. A shortcut to death. Golf courses are too much like cemeteries.
California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn’t really need. You can quote me on that.
Fun comes hard – like, alas, its prarens, pleasure and happiness, whom we have to pursue.
The soul has to find and hold its ground against hostile forces, sometimes embodied in ideas which frequently deny its very existence, and which indeed often seem to be trying to annul it altogether.
Americans must be the most sententious people in history. Far too busy to be religious, they have always felt that they sorely needed guidance.
Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. But the over-examined life makes you wish you were dead. Given the alternative, I’d rather be living.
What Homo sapien imagines, he may slowly convert himself to.
It’s no disgrace to be a private, you know. Socrates was a plain foot soldier, a hoplite.
Imagination is a force of nature.
I’ve never turned over a fig leaf yet that didn’t have a price tag on the other side.
When the striving ceases, there is life waiting as a gift.
It is sometimes necessary to repeat what all know. All mapmakers should place the Mississippi in the same location and avoid originality.
There are times when the most practical thing is to lie down.
The best and purest human beings, from the beginning of time, have understood that life is sacred.