Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatedly) 'Ever to confess you're bored means you have no inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored.

Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made.

Two daiquiris withdrew into a corner of a gorgeous room and one told the other a lie.

I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is this: the artist is extremely lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill him. At that point, he's in business: Beethoven's deafness, Goya's deafness, Milton's blindness, that kind of thing.

One must be ruthless with one's own writing or someone else will be.

I am so wise I had my mouth sewn shut.

I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am heavy bored. Peoples bore me, literature bores me, especially great literature.