The more I see of life the more I perceive that only through solitary communion with nature can one gain an idea of its richness and meaning.

The true work of art is the one which the seventh wave of genius throws up the beach where the undertow of time cannot drag it back.

The only way for writers to meet is to share a quick peek over a common lamp-post.

Dining out is a vice, a dissipation of spirit punished by remorse. We eat, drink, and talk a little too much, abuse all our friends, belch out our literary preferences and are egged on by accomplices in the audience to acts of mental exhibitionism. Such evenings cannot fail to diminish those who take part in them. They end on Monkey Hill.

If our elaborate and dominating bodies are given us to be denied at every turn, if our nature is always wrong and wicked, how ineffectual we are; like fishes not meant to swim.

Obesity is a mental state, a disease brought on by boredom and disappointment.

Poets arguing about modern poetry: jackals snarling over a dried-up well.