Thanks to their decreased brainpower, people aren't diverted from the main business of life by the hobgoblins of opinion anymore.

The world is too serious. To get mad at a work of art-because maybe somebody, somewhere is blowing his stack over what I've done-is like getting mad at a hot fudge sundae.

In those days great teachers at Shortridge [High School] were celebrities. I would look up to them.

Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

No art is possible without a dance with death.

Her face ... was a one-of-a-kind, a surprising variation on a familiar theme - a variation that made observers think, Yes - that would be another very nice way for people to look. What Beatrice had done with her face, actually, was what any plain girl could do. She overlaid it with dignity, suffering, intelligence, and a piquant dash of bitchiness.

After that demonstration everybody was thinking, what's going to happen to these wonderful men who have been so useful to us? We have to give people something to do with life.