..it's awful not to be loved. It's the worst thing in the world...It makes you mean, and violent, and cruel.

In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration.

Well, I remember this girl. I am not whole without her. I am not alive without her. When she was with me I was more alive than I have ever been, and not only when she was pleasant either. Even when we were fighting I was whole.

Books are the best friends you can have; they inform you, and entertain you, and they don't talk back.

Maybe-- maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure-- never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself?

There's a capacity for appetite... that a whole heaven and earth of cake can't satisfy

Americans are much more American than they are Northerners, Southerners, Westerners, or Easterners ... California Chinese, Boston Irish, Wisconsin German, yes, Alabama Negroes, have more in common than they have apart ... The American identity is an exact and provable thing.