If you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life. A good life is not measured by any biblical span.

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

Romance was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes.

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.

No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.

There is no such thing as great writing - there is only great re-writing!

The writer's job is to tell the truth.