But the artist persists because he has the will to create, and this is the magic power which can transform and transfigure and transpose and which will ultimately be transmitted to others.

Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.

The shell is America's most active contribution to the formation of character. A tough hide. Grow it early.

I adore the struggle you carry in yourself. I adore your terrifying sincerity.

New York has an electronic heart.

I would like to have your sureness. I am waiting for love, the core of a woman's life." Don't wait for it," I said. "Create a world, your world. Alone. Stand alone. And then love will come to you, then it comes to you. It was only when I wrote my first book that the world I wanted to live in opened to me.

Physical experiences, lacking the joys of love, depend on twists and perversions of pleasure. Abnormal pleasures kill the taste for normal ones.