My war brought me many things; let yours bring you as much. Life is not to be told, call it as loud as you like, it will not tell itself. No one will be much or little except in someone else's mind, so be careful of the minds you get into, and remember Lady Macbeth, who had her mind in her hand. We can't all be as safe as that.

When one wants to become cognizant of the color and the texture of the soil, one does not get a ladder; one gets a shovel. When one wants to get into touch with the texture of the universal mind, one does not go to Boston; one goes to the Bowery.

The truth is how you say it, and to be 'one's self' is the most shocking custom of all.

Even the contemplative life is only an effort, Nora my dear, to hide the body so the feet won’t stick out.

Life is painful, nasty and short.. in my case it has only been painful and nasty.

Yes, we who are full to the gorge with misery should look well around, doubting everything seen, done, spoken, precisely because we have a word for it, and not its alchemy

You beat the liver out of a goose to get a pâté; you pound the muscles of a man's cardia to get a philosopher.