Somehow I have the feeling that in some book is the great treasure I've been looking for all my life.

There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.

It is not easy to be solitary unless you are also born ruthless. Every solitary repudiates someone.

There are two barriers that often prevent communication between the young and their elders. The first is middle-aged forgetfulness of the fact that they themselves are no longer young. The second is youthful ignorance of the fact that the middle aged are still alive.

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

The West is color. Its colors are animal rather than vegetable, the colors of earth and sunlight and ripeness.

Justice is a terrible but necessary thing.