If Henry Miller often sounded like a village idiot, it is because, like Whitman, he was the rest of the village as well.

But women are always attracted to power. I do not think there could ever be a conqueror so bloody that most women would not willingly lie with him in the hope of bearing a son who would be every bit as ferocious as the father.

Next to "I win," "I told you so" are the sweetest words.

Since no one can ever know for certain whether or not his own view of life is the correct one, it is absolutely impossible for him to know if someone else's is the wrong one.

If you are at the mercy of what they call print interviews and the mercy of people who write about you, they can always tell lies.

Of course his dust would be absorbed in other living things and to that degree at least he would exist again, though it was plain enough that the specific combination which was he would never exist again.

Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know; I've done it myself.