Like all men who are Napoleonic in their ambitionshe has instincts about the nature of growth, a lover's sense of the momentof crisis, and he knewhow costly is defeat when it is not soothed by greater consciousness, and how wasteful is the profit of victory when there is not the courage to employ it.

The war between being and nothingness is the underlying illness of the twentieth century. Boredom slays more of existence than war.

Since great writers communicate a vision of existence, one can't borrow their methods. The method is married to the vision.

Existentialism is the kind of philosophy that makes for legendary children.

A book of great beauty and manically exquisite insight with a wild and deadly humor . . . The only American novelist who may conceivably be possessed by genius.

Sex is not only a divine and beautiful activity; it's a murderous activity. People kill each other in bed. Some of the greatest crimes ever committed were committed in bed. And no weapons were used.

The private terror of the liberal spirit is invariably suicide, not murder.