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

America is no place for an artist: to be an artist is to be a moral leper, an economic misfit, a social liability. A corn-fed hog enjoys a better life than a creative writer, painter or musician. To be a rabbit is better still.

Who hates the Jews more than the Jew?

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

Analysis brings no curative powers in its train; it merely makes us conscious of the existence of an evil, which, oddly enough, is consciousness.

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.

The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.