It's [Los Angeles] mostly full of nonsense and delusion and egomania. They think they'll be young and beautiful forever, even though most of them aren't even young and beautiful now.

The fact is: It's true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.

I became a journalist because one didn't have to specialise.

Do I fear death? No, I am not afraid of being dead because there's nothing to be afraid of, I won't know it. I fear dying, of dying I feel a sense of waste about it and I fear a sordid death, where I am incapacitated or imbecilic at the end which isn't something to be afraid of, it's something to be terrified of.

I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light.

Part of the function of memory is to forget; the omni-retentive mind will break down and produce at best an idiot savant who can recite a telephone book, and at worst a person to whom every grudge and slight is as yesterday's.

Religion attacks us in our deepest integrity by saying we wouldn't be able to make a moral decision without it.