There's people in hell who want ice water.

The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D.

... Chicago divided your heart. Leaving you loving the joint for keeps. Yet knowing it never can love you.

Thinking of Poe, thinking of Mark Twain and Vachel Lindsay, thinking of Jack London and Tom Wolfe, one begins to feel there is almost no way of becoming a creative writer in America without being a loser.

Never eat in a place called 'Mom's'.

The hard necessity of bringing the judge on the bench down into the dock has been the peculiar responsibility of the writer in all ages of man.

Chicago is an October sort of city even in spring.