American art in general... takes to surreal exaggerations and metaphors; but its Puritan work ethic has little use for the playful self-indulgence behind Parisian Surrealism.

I'm willing to show good taste, if I can, in somebody else's living room, but our reading life is too short for a writer to be in any way polite. Since his words enter into another's brain in silence and intimacy, he should be as honest and explicit as we are with ourselves.

Wickedness was like food: once you got started it was hard to stop; the gut expanded to take in more and more.

If she’d been born at the right time they would have burned her over in Salem.

I will try not to panic, to keep my standard of living modest and to work steadily, even shyly, in the spirit of those medieval carvers who so fondly sculpted the undersides of choir seats.

It is not difficult to deceive the first time, for the deceived possesses no antibodies; unvaccinated by suspicion, she overlooks lateness, accepts absurd excuses, permits the flimsiest patching to repair great rents in the quotidian.

The difficulty is, all swing thoughts decay, like radium. What burnt up the course on Wednesday has turned to lead on Sunday. Yet it does not do to have a blank mind: the terrible hugeness of the course will rush into the vacuum and the ball will spray like a thing berserk.