She was beautiful - but especially she was without mercy.

There's a right way of doing things and a wrong way. If you've made up your mind to be different from everybody else, I don't suppose I can stop you, but I really don't think it's very considerate.

The past--the wild charge at the head of his men up San Juan Hill; the first years of his marriage when he worked late into the summer dusk down in the busy city for young Hildegarde whom he loved; the days before that when he sat smoking far into the night in the gloomy old Button house on Monroe Street with his grandfather-all these had faded like unsubstantial dreams from his mind as though they had never been. He did not remember.

A man's social rank is determined by the amount of bread he eats in a sandwich.

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

When I'm with you, I don't breathe quite right.

Often I think writing is a sheer paring away of oneself leaving always something thinner, barer, more meagre.