America hates the artist. It will not admit: the artist is my soul and I want to kill off my soul.

My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.

Balance is not to be sought by association with others; it must exist within one's self.

The city was asleep on its right side and shaking with violent nightmares. Long puffs of snoring came out of the chimneys. Its feet were sticking out because the clouds did not cover it altogether. There was a hole in them and the white feathers were falling out. The city had untied all its bridges like so many buttons to feel at ease. Wherever there was a lamplight the city scratched itself until it went out.

We celebrate peace. Yet we pay no attention to the ways of curing aggression in human beings. And when one sees in psychoanalysis hostility disappearing as people conquer their fears, one wonders if the cure is not there.

I am a failure as a writer. The publishers won't publish me, the bookshops won't carry my books, the critics won't write about me. I am excluded from all anthologies, and completely ignored.

We are never trapped unless we choose to be.