You have to have something vicious in you to be a creative writersomething old-adamish, incompatible to the "ordinary world.

Art- speech is the only truth. An artist is usually a damned liar but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day and that is all that matters. Away with eternal truth. The truth lives from day to day, and the marvelous Plato of yesterday is chiefly bosh today.

Any novel of importance has a purpose. If only the "purpose" be large enough, and not at outs with the passional inspiration.

It is all a question of sensitiveness. Brute force and overbearing may make a terrific effect. But in the end, that which lives by delicate sensitiveness. If it were a question of brute force, not a single human baby would survive for a fortnight. It is the grass of the field, most frail of all things, that supports all life all the time. But for the green grass, no empire would rise, no man would eat bread: for grain is grass; and Hercules or Napoleon or Henry Ford would alike be denied existence.

In my very own self, I am part of my family.

To the Puritan all things are impure, as somebody says.

Since obscenity is the truth of our passion today, it is the only stuff of art -- or almost the only stuff.