We are such docile creatures, normally, that it takes a virus to jolt us out of life's routine. A couple of days in a fever bed are, in a sense, health-giving; the change in body temperature, the change in pulse , and the change of scene have a restorative effect on the system equal to the hell they raise.

In a man's middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities.

Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.

The whole problem is to establish communication with ones self.

A despot doesn't fear eloquent writers preaching freedom- he fears a drunken poet who may crack a joke that will take hold.

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

There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments—moments of sustained creation—when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a writer's time isn't worth the paper he is not writing anything on.