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

The truly great writer does not want to write: he wants the world to be a place in which he can live the life of the imagination. The first quivering word he puts to paper is the word of the wounded angel: pain.

I used to think a bird couldn't fly if its wings got wet.

The Teutons have been singing the swan song ever since they entered the ranks of history. They have always confounded truth with death.

If one believes, then miracles occur.

I had a microscopic eye for the blemish, for the grain of ugliness which to me constituted the sole beauty of the object.

If I were reading a book and happened to strike a wonderful passage I would close the book then and there and go for a walk. I hated the thought of coming to the end of a good book. I would tease it along, delay the inevitable as long as possible, But always, when I hit a great passage, I would stop reading immediately. Out I would go, rain, hail, snow or ice, and chew the cud.