The H-bomb rather favors small nations that doesn't as yet possess it; they feel slightly more free to jostle other nations, having discovered that a country can stick its tongue out quite far these days without provoking war, so horrible are war's consequences.

Much of our adult morality, in books and out of them, has a stuffiness unworthy of childhood. Our grown-up conclusions often rest on perilously soft bottom.

There is simply a better chance of doing well if the writer holds a steady course, enters the stream of English quietly, and does not thrash about.

In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty. Only under a dictatorship is literature expected to exhibit an harmonious design or an inspirational tone.

Home was quite a place when people stayed there.

Life's accumulation is more discouraging than life itself, when stirred up.

An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.