It seems to me that you are better off, as a writer and as an American, in a small town than you'd be in New York. I thoroughly detest New York, though I have to go there very often.... Have you ever noticed that no American writer of any consequence lives in Manhattan? Dreiser tried it (after many years in the Bronx), but finally moved to California.

Religion deserves no more respect than a pile of garbage.

If all the lawyers were hanged tomorrow, and their bones were sold to a mah jong factory, we'd all be freer and safer, and our taxes would be reduced by almost a half.

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

As long as you represent me as praising alcohol I shall not complain. It is, I believe, the greatest of human inventions, and by far - much greater than Hell, the radio or the bichloride tablet.

Psychotherapy is the theory that the patient will probably get well anyhow and is certainly a damn fool.

Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music.