I cannot concentrate all my friendship on any single one of my friends because no one is complete enough in himself.

I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy. I am a neurotic — in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself.

Memory is a great betrayer.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

jazz is the expression of America's romantic self, its sensual potency, its lyrical force.

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.

There is no denying that we are suffering from a collective neurosis and the novel which does not face this is not a novel of our time.