I guess experience is just learning at first hand the things you knew all along anyway.

[Sex] is something big and cosmic. What else do we have? There's only birth and death and the union of two people - and sex is the only one that happens to us more than once.

They had stopped now and he gave a glance up at the sky, through the trees, as though to see how much time was left. Amber, watching him, was suddenly struck with panic. Now he was going--out again into that great world with its bustle and noise and excitement--and she must stay here. She had a terrible new feeling of loneliness, as if she stood in some solitary corner at a party where she was the only stranger. Those places he had seen, she would never see; those fine things he had done, she would never do. But worst of all she would never see him again.

There's one thing I've always known: You can let people suspect anything else about you, but you must never let them suspect you of knowing what you're doing.

... maybe that's all anyone who writes or paints or sculpts is doing anyway -- excusing themselves for refusing to live like other people or be like them.

there are only two ways to make a lot [of money] while you're young: One is to entertain the public; and the other is to cheat it.

The only genius that's worth anything is the genius for hard work.