In utter loneliness a writer tries to explain the inexplicable.

Men really do need sea-monsters in their personal oceans

Trips to fairly unknown regions should be made twice; once to make mistakes and once to correct them.

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

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.

A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.

Good God, what a mess of draggle-tail impulses a man is--and a woman too, I guess.