I've often found myself preferring second-rate people to supposedly superior people, simply and solely because of their uncontrollable tendency to bang themselves against the sides of life's vast lampshade like fireflies or moths.

The rich have a passion for bargains as lively as it is pointless.

I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, Is the only sensible way to love.

There is no such thing as an ideal man. The ideal man is the man you love at the moment.

I recognize limitations in the sense that I've read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare . . . Aside from that I don't think of limiting myself.

Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.

One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.