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

There was no particular point at which I stopped being promising.

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

Succeed! It has been done, and with a stupidity that can astound the most experienced.

There is no moment that exceeds in beauty that moment when one looks at a woman and finds that she is looking at you in the same way that you are looking at her. The moment in which she bestows that look that says, "Proceed with your evil plan, sumbitch.

Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, rather because it wishes to be art. However much the writer might long to be straightforward, these virtues are no longer available to him. He discovers that in being simple, honest, straightforward, nothing much happens.

The self cannot be escaped, but it can be, with ingenuity and hard work, distracted.