pity is an agreeable sentiment, uplifting like military music.

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.

I've tried very hard and I've never found any resemblance between the people I know and the people in my novels.

I've read Proust and Stendhal. That keeps you in your place.

Art must take reality by surprise. It takes those moments which are for us merely a moment, plus a moment, plus another moment, and arbitrarily transforms them into a special series of moments held together by a major emotion.

People respect unhappiness and find it especially hard to forgive success.

A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to take it off of you.