Man is vile, and man makes nothing worth making, knows nothing worth knowing.

Words may deeply wound us, but we must run that risk to be free.

Sometimes I think it is a great mistake to have matter that can think and feel. It complains so.

I pity the Jews trying to get through life with only half a Bible. That's like trying to get from here to San Francisco with a road map that stops at Dubuque, Iowa.

You can't just eat good food. You've got to talk about it too. And you've got to talk about it to somebody who understands that kind of food.

I paraphrase Aristotle: If you want to be comical, write about people to whom the audience can feel superior; if you want to be tragical, write about at least one person to whom the audience is bound to feel inferior, and no fair having human problems solved by dumb luck or heavenly intervention.

Trout was petrified there on Forty-second Street. It had given him a life not worth living, but I had also given him an iron will to live. This was a common combination on the planet Earth.