The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.

A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven.

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do.

I don't know, now, when I first looked at Hella and found her stale, found her body uninteresting, her presence grating. It seemed to happen all at once—I suppose that only means that it had been happening for a long time.

If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected - those, precisely, who need the law's protection most! - and listens to their testimony.

When you're writing you're trying to find out something which you don't know.