The purpose of writing is to make your mother and father drop dead with shame.

If you're going to love somebody, love somebody who needs it.

When you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When you have both, it's health. If everything is simply jake, then you're frightened of death

See all the women seated, youth in their face lifts, old age in their hands.

When I die, I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs in Dublin. I wonder would they know it was me?

Revenge is what I want. Nothing but pure unadulterated revenge. But my mother brought me up to be a lady.

The best book of the year, Grobel's writing is quite marvelous. The Hustons reads vividly, just like one of John Huston's great films.