You make your own luck, Gig. You know what makes a good loser? Practice.

I never had to choose a subject - my subject rather chose me.

There is no night life in Spain. They stay up late but they get up late. That is not night life. That is delaying the day.

Modern life ... is often a mechanical oppression and liquor is the only mechanical relief.

Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.

Now Catherine would die. That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you.

You write a book like that you're fond of over the years, then you see that happen to it, it's like pissing in your father's beer.