We are what we have been told about ourselves. We are the sum of the messages we have received. The true messages. The false messages.

Now, here is the point about the self: it is insatiable. It is always, always hankering. It is what you might call rapacious to a fault. The great flaming mouth to the thing is never in this world going to be stuff full.

I think writers like old cities and are made very nervous by new cities.

The best way to live is by not knowing what will happen to you at the end of the day.

The privileged classes can afford psychoanalysis and whiskey. Whereas all we get is sermons and sour wine. This is manifestly unfair. I protest, silently.

Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, but because it wishes to be art.

The writer is one who, emnbarking upon a task, does not know what to do.