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

A blonde girl wearing a man's shirt but in all other visible respects unmanly to the point of outright effeminacy.

A bad review may spoil your breakfast, but you shouldn't allow it to spoil your lunch.

Hangover cure: Rigorous sex, hydration, hot bath, then "go up for half an hour in an open aeroplane. (needless to say, with a non-hungover person at the controls)."

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.

Doing what you wanted to do was the only training, and the only preliminary, needed for doing more of what you wanted to do.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko: 'You atheist?' "Kingsley Amis: 'Well, yes, but it's more that I hate him.