[The writer] wants both to do the best possible work and also to reach the largest possible audience. The result is a fairly normal condition of discouragement.

the calm of a place like Bellwood is the peace of death without the hope of resurrection.

It is only in his head that man is heroic; in the pit of his stomach he is always a coward.

it's been my experience that the first few days of married life women are blind because they want to be and after that because they have to be.

There is no place in the world, I imagine, for a philosopher with a sense of humor, a new leisure, and an inquiring turn of mind!

There is something shameful about the death of a play. It does not die with pity, but contempt.

[When working on a book] I have an almost complete detachment from the world I live in, a sort of armor against distraction. I talk to people, move about, appear on the surface much as usual. But later on I have only a confused memory of what has happened during that period.