we are, in this country, more open to new ideas. But we are also, it seems to me, more inclined to hail the new as absolute truth - until the next new comes along.

In my early twenties, that's when I really began to write. Before that, I was too busy working, keeping myself going.

If a person had accused him of meanness, he could have defended himself. But with a dog - you did something cheap to it when you were sure no one was looking, and it was as though you had done it in front of a mirror.

There was no way to grasp the reality of the present which slid away each second, invisible as air; reality only existed after the fact, in one's vision of the past.

My first job was working in a dress shop in Los Angeles in 1940, for $7 a week.

The truth came slowly like a story told by people interrupting each other.

Freedom is a public library.