Most writers are not quick-witted when they talk. Novelists, in particular, drag themselves around in society like gut-shot bears.

I've got at least one tiny corner of the universe I can make just the way I want it.

No one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God.

The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three: empty heroics, low comedy, and pointless death.

That's what my books are, now that I'm a grownup - mosaics of jokes.

It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead.