I was never an Angry Young Man. I am angry only when I hit my thumb with a hammer.

Whatever part drink may play in the writer's life, it must play none in his or her work.

Education is one thing and instruction, however worthy, necessary and incidentally or monetarily educative, another.

The rewards for being sane may not be very many, but knowing what's funny is one of them.

You'll find that marriage is a good short cut to the truth. No, not quite that. A way of doubling back to the truth. Another thing you'll find is that the years of illusion aren't those of adolescense, as the grown-ups try to tell us; they're the ones immediately after it, say the middle twenties, the false maturity if you like, when you first get thoroughly embroiled in things and lose your head. Your age, by the way, Jim. That's when you first realize that sex is important to other people besides yourself. A discovery like that can't help knocking you off balance for a time.

Sex is a momentary itch, love never lets you go.

It scored right away with me by being the smooth, fine-grained sort, not the coarse flaky, dry-on-the-outside rubbish full of chunds of gut and gristle to testify to its authenticity.