It is silly not to hope, besides I believe it is a sin." The Old Man and the Sea

A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

A good life is not measured by any biblical span.

The first and most important thing of all, at least for writers today, is to strip language clean, to lay it bare down to the bone.

Life is the best left hooker I ever saw, although some say it was Charlie White of Chicago

But in the meantime all the life you have or ever will have is today, tonight, tomorrow, today, tonight, tomorrow, over and over again (I hope).

He remembered poor Julian [actually F. Scott Fitzgerald] and his romantic awe of them and how he had started a story once that began, "The very rich are different from you and me." And how someone had said to Julian, "Yes, they have more money."