I never know when I sit down, just what I am going to write. I make no plan; it just comes, and I don't know where it comes from.

That's how women are with me " said Paul. "They want me like mad but they don't want to belong to me.

I am convinced that the air we normally breathe is a kind of water, and men and women are a species of fish.

The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up.

The true artist doesn't substitute immorality for morality. On the contrary, he always substitutes a finer morality for a grosser one.

For God's sake, all of you, say spiteful things about me, then I shall know I mean something to you. Don't say surgaries, or I'm done.

[Hawthorne''s] pious blame is a chuckle of praise all the while.