I haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls and bookshops. I ran everywhere in the city like a fly buzzing in the works of a clock, tasted more than any fit belly could hold, learned not to sleep, and buried myself in a tick-tock of whirling hours that still echo in me.

The rule in the art world is: you cater to the masses or you kowtow to the elite; you can't have both.

Despite all our toil and progress, the art of medicine still falls somewhere between trout casting and spook writing.

For many years Hollywood held this double lure for me, tremendous sums of money for work that required no more effort than a game of pinochle.

That God has managed to survive the inanities of the religions that do Him homage is truly a miraculous proof of His existence.

They're a symbol of the whole town, pretending to fight, love, weep and laugh all the time - and they're phonies, all of them. And I head the list...their phony hearts were dripping with the milk of human kindness.

The only practical way yet discovered by the world for curing its ills is to forget about them.