The bank - the monster has to have profits all the time. It can't wait. It'll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't stay one size.

It occurs to me that just as the Carthaginians hired mercenaries to do their fighting for them, we Americans being in mercenaries to do our hard and humble work. I hope we may not be overwhelmed one day by peoples not too proud or too lazy or too soft to bend to the earth and pick up the things we eat.

As happens sometimes, a moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.

I start out to write five days a week, and then it runs to six days and finally seven. Then, eventually, that wave of weariness overwhelms me and I don't know what's the matter. That is, I know but I won't admit it. I'm just tired from writing. As you get older, writing becomes harder. By that I mean you see so many more potentialities. Things like transition used to trouble me. But not any more. When I say it's harder, I'm not talking about facility. You learn all the so-called tricks, but then you don't want to use them.

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.

Once you have lived in New York and made it your home, no place else is good enough

I've always taken my hangovers as consequence, not as a punishment.