I've done more harm by the falseness of trying to please than by the honesty of trying to hurt.

The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.

Nothing is so dear as what you're about to leave.

Only a fool would refuse to enter a fool's paradise when that's the only paradise he'll ever have a chance to enter.

Writing is so difficult that I feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.

I am always jumping into the sausage grinder and deciding, even before I’m half ground, that I don’t want to be a sausage after all.

The conversation of two people remembering, if the memory is enjoyable to both, rocks on like music or lovemaking. There is a rhythm and a predictability to it that each anticipates and relishes.