Old age is a special problem for me because I've never been able to shed the mental image I have of myself - a lad of about 19.

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.

Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.

Americans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, very little trouble and expense advocating them with words. Temperamentally we are ready to die for certain principles (or, in the case of overripe adults, send youngsters to die), but we show little inclination to advertise the reasons for dying.

Before the seed there comes the thought of bloom.

When you consider that there are a thousand ways to express even the simplest idea, it is no wonder writers are under a great strain. Writers care greatly how a thing is said - it makes all the difference. So they are constantly faced with too many choices and must make too many decisions.

Writing is not an exercise in excision, it's a journey into sound.