money that is in billions and monopolies isn't money at all, because the people have none, and money is democratic, everyone has to have some or there's none at all.

It's easy to make money. You put up the sign Bank and someone walks in and hands you his money. The façade is everything.

Humorists are always pessimists. They're reactionaries: because they see that every golden cloud has a black lining.

Every work of art should give utterance, or indicate, the awful blind strength and the cruelty of the creative impulse, that is why they must all have what are called errors, both of taste and style.

You want to be free and break new ground, speak your mind, fear no man, have the neighbours acknowledge that you're a good man; and at the same time you want to be a success, make money, join the country club, get the votes and kick the other man in the teeth and off the ladder.

All middle-class novels are about the trials of three, all upper-class novels about mass fornication, all revolutionary novels about a bad man turned good by a tractor.

The Chinese are a knowing people; and I daresay that is why they once made a religious odor about old age; to prevent their sons from seeing their own future.