We are hardly ever as strong as that which we create.

You can forgive a fool because he only runs in one direction and doesn't deceive anybody. It's the deceivers who make you feel bad.

Hemingway and Saroyan had the line, the magic of it. The problem was that Hemingway didn't know how to laugh and Saroyan was filled with sugar.

Writing is something that you don't know how to do. You sit down and it's something that happens, or it may not happen. So, how can you teach anybody how to write? It's beyond me, because you yourself don't even know if you're going to be able to. I'm always worried, well, you know, every time I go upstairs with my wine bottle. Sometimes I'll sit at that typewriter for fifteen minutes, you know. I don't go up there to write. The typewriter's up there. If it doesn't start moving, I say, well this could be the night that I hit the dust.

this time has finished me.

I have been treated better than I should have been---not by life in general nor by the machinery of things but by women.

It’s the order of things: each one gets a taste of honey then the knife.