It is an author's most solemn obligation to honor truth. If the free and independent writer does not speak truth to power, who will?

One single act of defiance against power, against the State that seems omnipotent but is not, transforms and transfigures the human personality. At least for a time. For a while. Perhaps that is enough.

The ideal kitchen-sink novel: Throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Then add the kitchen sink.

Our job is to record, each in his own way, this world of light and shadow and time that will never come again exactly as it is today.

I would never betray a friend to serve a cause. Never reject a friend to help an institution. Great nations may fall in ruin before I would sell a friend to save them.

Narrow-minded provincialism: Sad to say but true - I am more interested in the mountain lions of Utah, the wild pigs of Arizona, than I am in the fate of all the Arabs of Araby, all the Wogs of Hindustan, all the Ethiopes of Abyssinia.

Life is unfair. And it's not fair that life is unfair.