a writer is a foreign country

No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation.

You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they're simply unbearable.

What stops you killing yourself when you're intoxicated out of your mind is the thought that once you're dead you won't be able to drink any more.

He wanted to pay her; he thought women ought to be paid for keeping men from dying or going out of their minds.

It's only women who are not really quite women at all, frivolous women who have no idea, who neglect repairs.

Some people are like that - closed - they can't learn from anyone. Us, for example, we can't learn anything, neither I from you nor you from me, nor from anyone, nor from anything, nor from what happens.