It is natural for men to want power. But to seek power actively takes a temperament baffling to both the simple and the wise. The simple cannot fathom how any man would dare presume to prevail, while the wise are amazed that any reasonable man would want the world, assuming he could get it.

I sometimes think it is because they are so bad at expressing themselves verbally that writers take to pen and paper in the first place

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.

The creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small 'yes' at the center of a vast 'no.'

It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, no matter how suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.

The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes.

...I'm no longer the scales most lovers are, weighing the deeds and gifts and treasures proffered against those received or stolen from the other, trying always to bring into fatal balance two separate things.