In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.

I have never smuggled anything in my life. Why, then, do I feel an uneasy sense of guilt on approaching a customs barrier?

The craft of writing is the art of penetrating other minds with the figures that are in your own mind.

It isn't like the rest of the country - it is like a nation itself - more tolerant than the rest in a curious way. Littleness gets swallowed up here. All the viciousness that makes other cities vicious is sucked up and absorbed in New York.

I've lived in good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. I like weather rather than climate.

And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.

The ways of sin are curious . . . I guess if a man had to shuck off everything he had, inside and out, he'd manage to hide a few little sins somewhere for his own discomfort. They're the last things we'll give up.