There is a mystery in all great writing and that mystery does not dissect out. It continues and is always valid.

The one who is doing his work and getting satisfaction from it is not the one the poverty bothers.

Mice: What is the best early training for a writer? Y.C.: An unhappy childhood.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one. You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

I spend a hell of a lot of time killing animals and fish so I wouldn't kill myself. When a man is in rebellion against death, as I am in rebellion against death, he gets pleasure out of taking to himself one of the godlike attributes; that of giving it.

For a poet he threw a very accurate milk bottle.