Oh, now, now, now, the only now, and above all now, and there is no other now but thou now and now is thy prophet.

All the contact I have had with politics has left me feeling as though I had been drinking out of spitoons.

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.

Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.

You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?

No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things

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