I don't know about bores. Maybe you shouldn't feel too sorry if you see some swell girl getting married to them. They don't hurt anybody most of them, and maybe they're all terrific whistlers or something. Who the hell knows? Not me.

God, how I still love private readers. It’s what we all used to be.

He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were.

There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady.

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)

You don't know how to talk to people you don't like. Don't love, really. You can't live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes.

You can't argue with someone who believes, or just passionately suspects, that the poet's function is not to write what he must write but, rather, to write what he would write if his life depended on his taking responsibility for writing what he must in a style designed to shut out as few of his old librarians as humanly possible.