I have learned that neither kindness or cruelty by themselves, or independent of each other, create any effect beyond themselves.

All serious art is being destroyed by commerce. Most people don't want art to be disturbing. They want it to be escapist. I don't think art should be escapist. That's a waste of time.

If a man writes a brilliant enough play in praise of something that is universally loathed, the play, if it is good and well enough written, should not be knocked down because of its approach to its subject.

It always seems to me better to slough off the answer to a question that I consider to be a terrible invasion of privacy - the kind of privacy that a writer must keep for himself.

What I wanted to get at is the value difference between pornographic playing-cards when you're a kid, and pornographic playing-cards when you're older. It's that when you're a kid you use the cards as a substitute for a real experience, and when you're older you use real experience as a substitute for the fantasy.

I think you remember everything ... you just can't bring it to mind all the time.

The arts are the only things that separate us from the other animals. The arts are not decorative. ... They are essential to our comprehension of consciousness and ourselves.