All men are mortal, and therefore all men are losers; our profoundest loyalty goes out to the failed.

The measure of artistic merit is the length to which a writer is willing to go in following his own compulsions.

The inner spaces that a good story lets us enter are the old apartments of religion.

An American in London...cannot but be impressed and charmed by the city. The momumentality of Washington, the thriving business of New York, the antique intimacy of Boston, plus a certain spacious and open feeling reminiscent of Denver and San Francisco-all these he finds combined for his pleasure.

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.

You always find things you didn't know you were going to say, and that is the adventure.

The difference between a childhood and a boyhood must be this: our childhood is what we alone have had; our boyhood is what any boy in our environment would have had.