It doesn't matter what people call you unless they call you pigeon pie and eat you up.

One has to regard a man as a Master who can produce on average three uniquely brilliant and entirely original similes to every page.

Don't give your opinions about Art and the Purpose of Life. They are of little interest and, anyway, you can't express them. Don't analyze yourself. Give the relevant facts and let your readers make their own judgments. Stick to your story. It is not the most important subject in history but it is one about which you are uniquely qualified to speak.

He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.

O God, make me good, but not yet.

Pray always for all the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.

The trouble with modern education is you never know how ignorant people are. With anyone over fifty you can be fairly confident what's been taught and what's been left out. But these young people have such an intelligent, knowledgeable surface, and then the crust suddenly breaks and you look down into depths of confusion you didn't know existed.