The idea that to make a man work you've got to hold gold in front of his eyes is a growth, not an axiom. We've done that for so long that we've forgotten there's any other way.

Conditions in the [movie] industry somehow propose the paradox: "We brought you here for your individuality but while you're here we insist that you do everything to conceal it.

How the unforgettable faces of dusk would blend to her, the myriad footsteps, a thousand overtures, would blend to her footsteps; and there would be more drunkenness than wine in the softness of her eyes on his.

In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.

Even when everything seems rotten you can't trust that judgment. It's the sum of all your judgments that counts.

He snatched the book from me and replaced it hastily on its shelf, muttering that if one brick was removed the whole library was liable to collapse.

A writer like me must have an utter confidence, an utter faith in his star. It's an almost mystical feeling, a feeling of nothing-can-happen-to me, nothing-can-touch-me.... I once had it. But through a series of blows, many of them my own fault, something happened to that sense of immunity and I lost my grip.