Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure.

If you can't annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.

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

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.

Now and then I become conscious of having the reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of the great drunks, of our time.

The first, indeed the only, requirement of a diet is that it should lose you weight without reducing your alcoholic intake by the smallest degree.

It is natural and harmless in English to use a preposition to end a sentence with.