Most lives are spent putting on and taking off masks.

Since I ought to be arrogant, impressed with my social position, overwhelmed by my beauty, therefore I am. Actually I was never my own type so I completely missed my beauty all through my youth. I have no social position and I stay away from what is known as society as much as possible. But people like to re-invent you, according to cliché.

The only absolute attainment is absolute abandonment.

[ New York ] is a place that worships incompetence particularly if it's combined with energy and paranoid self-confidence. Only in a city like New York could Truman Capote have made it, or John Simon.

I assume that the point of American democracy is you can express any point of view you want.

What we are is seldom what we want to be, while what we want to be is either denied us or changes with the seasons.

Novels, except as aids to masturbation, play no part in contemporary life.