The room was not impressively large, even by Manhattan apartment-house standards, but its accumulated furnishings might have lent a snug appearance to a banquet hall in Valhalla.

The Great Gatsby' [...] was my 'Tom Sawyer' when I was twelve [....]

I don't even like old cars. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake.

I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don't honestly know what kind.... It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.' Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know.

But I was afraid of the questions (much more than the accusations) you might both put to me.

And the old horror of being a professional writer, and the usual stench of words that goes with it, is begining to drive me out of my seat. (Buddy)

I was surrounded by jerks. I'm not kidding.