'Life', said Emerson, "consists in what a man is thinking all day." If that be so, then my life is nothing but a big intestine.

The sordid qualities imputed to the enemy are always those which we recognize as our own and therefore rise to slay, because only through projection do we realize the enormity and horror of them.

A world without hope, but no despair

For some reason or other man looks for the miracle, and to accomplish it he will wade through blood. He will debauch himself with ideas, he will reduce himself to a shadow if for only one second of his life he can close his eyes to the hideousness of reality. Everything is endured-disgrace, humiliation, poverty, war, crime, ennui-in the belief that overnight something will occur, a miracle, which will render life tolerable.

My one thought is to get out of New York, to experience something genuinely American.

We're creators by permission, by grace as it were. No one creates alone, of and by himself. An artist is an instrument that registers something already existent, something which belongs to the whole world, and which, if he is an artist, he is compelled to give back to the world.

I like the one about the little soulworms that fly out of the nest for the resurrection.