Which other major religion is based on the Godhead incarnate being whipped, tacked to a cross, stabbed? Only the Marquis de Sade could have made up a sicker religion. It's no wonder that those brought up in such a culture hate life and enjoy inflicting pain. All societies are sick but some are sicker than others. Christian societies are certainly the sickest.

I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I have nothing to say, but a great deal to add.

The American vice is explanation.

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.

What is there to say, finally, except that pain is bad and pleasure good, life all, death nothing.

What other culture could have produced someone like Hemmingway and not seen the joke?

People have forgotten the effects of prohibition. We have become the United Statesof Amnesia.