This is the beauty I want. Beauty has got to be astonishing, astounding-- it's got to burst in on you like a dream, like the exquisite eyes of a girl.

A big man has no time really to do anything but just sit and be big.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"What are you going to do?" "Can't say - run for president, write -" "Greenwich Village?" "Good heavens, no - I said write - not drink."

You're a slave, a bound helpless slave to one thing in the world, your imagination.

Everywhere we go and move on and change, something's lost--something's left behind. You can't ever quite repeat anything, and I've been so yours, here--

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.