Things can happen in some cities and the tale of them will be interesting: the same story laid in another city would be ridiculous.

Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are 'story cities'- New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco.

No art that is not in the end understood by the People can live or ever did live a single generation.

Truth is a thing immortal and perpetual, and it gives to us a beauty that fades not away in time.

I never truckled. I never took off the hat to Fashion and held it out for pennies. I told them the truth. They liked it or they didn't like it. What had that to do with me? I told them the truth.

The function of the novelist... is to comment upon life as he sees it.

Evil is short lived. Never judge of the whole round of life by the mere segment you can see. The whole is, in the end, perfect.