Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art of living.

Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.

American married life is the doormat to the whorehouse.

The Mexican War was a training ground for generals, so that when the sad self-murders settled on us, the leaders knew the techniques for making it properly horrible.

Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes it'll on'y be one.

I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost.

I think today if we forbade our illiterate children to touch the wonderful things of our literature, perhaps they might steal them and find secret joy.