I think the story is my form.

The problem for me is that reading is, I won't say a sacred, but nevertheless a pretty serious act.

One serious drawback about letters is that, in order to get them, one must send some out. When it comes to the mail, I feel it is better to receive than to give.

Not to like ice cream is to show oneself uninterested in food.

Generalization, especially risky generalization, is one of the chief methods by which knowledge proceeds... Safe generalizations are usually rather boring. Delete that "usually rather." Safe generalizations are quite boring.

I was recently asked what it takes to become a writer. Three things, I answered: first, one must cultivate incompetence at almost every other form of profitable work. This must be accompanied, second, by a haughty contempt for all the forms of work that one has established one cannot do. To these two must be joined, third, the nuttiness to believe that other people can be made to care about your opinions and views and be charmed by the way you state them. Incompetence, contempt, lunacy—once you have these in place, you are set to go.

That wine drinking is more effete than beer drinking? No question.