Of all natural forces, vitality is the incommunicable one. . . . Vitality never "takes." You have it or you haven't it, like health or brown eyes or a baritone voice.

Having once found the intensity of art, nothing else that can happen in life can ever again seem as important as the creative process.

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

There has never been an American tragedy. There have only been great failures.

Premature success gives one an almost mystical conception of destiny as opposed to will power-at its worst the Napoleonic delusion.

I won’t kiss you. It might get to be a habit and I can’t get rid of habits.

He wanted to appear suddenly to her in novel and heroic colors. He wanted to stir her from that casualness she showed toward everything except herself.