Outside every fat man there is an even fatter man trying to close in.

Jake was close to tears. In that moment he saw the world in its true light, as a place where nothing had ever been any good and nothing of significance done: no art worth a second look, no philosophy of the slightest appositeness, no law but served the state, no history that gave an inkling of how it had been and what had happened. And no love, only egotism, infatuation and lust.

I am always incorrigibly interested in the behaviour of the 'human animal', and look forward to perusing divers effusions of your lively pen.

Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.

Feeling a tremendous rakehell, and not liking myself much for it, and feeling rather a good chap for not liking myself much for it, and not liking myself at all for feeling rather a good chap.

We should be wrong to demand that a critic must stay on the point all the time; it is enough if he remains in orbit around it.

Being American is, I think, a very difficult thing in art, because all the elements are European.