Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a toilet seat.

One day a long time from now you'll cease to care anymore whom you please or what anybody has to say about you. That's when you'll finally produce the work you're capable of.

It happens to be one of those days when I see everybody in the family, including myself, through the wrong end of a telescope.

Nobody who's really using his ego, his real ego, has any time for any goddam hobbies

It's nice when somebody tells you about their uncle. Especially when they start out telling you about their father's farm and then all of a sudden get more interested in their uncle.

As nearly as possible in the spirit of Matthew Salinger, age one, urging a luncheon companion to accept a cool lima bean, I urge my editor, mentor and (heaven help him) closest friend, William Shawn, genius domus of The New Yorker, lover of the long shot, protector of the unprolific, defender of the hopelessly flamboyant, most unreasonably modest of born great artist-editors to accept this pretty skimpy-looking book.

If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don't watch it, you start showing off. And then you're not as good any more.