History, like a vast river, propels logs, vegetation, rafts, and debris; it is full of live and dead things, some destined for resurrection; it mingles many waters and holds in solution invisible substances stolen from distant soils.

I once worked as a salesman and was very independent. I took orders from no one.

Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper not eternal bronze: Let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes.

To denounce does not free the self from what it hates, any more than ignoring the past shuts off its influence.

One great aim of revision is to cut out. In the exuberance of composition it is natural to throw in - as one does in speaking - a number of small words that add nothing to meaning but keep up the flow and rhythm of thought. In writing, not only does this surplusage not add to meaning, it subtracts from it. Read and revise, reread and revise, keeping reading and revising until your text seems adequate to your thought.

We cannot appreciate the art of any age without first acquiring an equivalent of the experience it depicts.

Above all, do not talk yourself out of good ideas by trying to expound them at haphazard meetings.