I once did something right. I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate.

Until the 20th century it was generally assumed that a writer had said what he had to say in his works.

When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas.

So much love, too much love, it is our madness, it is rotting us out, exploding us like dandelion polls.

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 heart prefers to move against the grain of circumstance; perversity is the souls very life.

Truth should not be forced; it should simply manifest itself, like a woman who has in her privacy reflected and coolly decided to bestow herself upon a certain man.