And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.

Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.

Work is the province of cattle.

He is a writer for the ages, the ages of four to eight.

[Completely bored by a country weekend, wiring to a friend:] For heaven's sake, rush me a loaf of bread, enclosing saw and file.

What ever beauty may be it has for its basis order and for its essence unity Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.

...as for helping me in the outside world, the Convent taught me only that if you spit on a pencil eraser, it will erase ink.