Too late, but I understand. That we don't perish of understanding everything too late, that is a miracle. But we do perish of that -- of just that.

I came to New York and in only hours, New York did what it does to people: awakened the possibilities. Hope breaks out.

Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. the illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on. What else could? As pathological phenomena go, it doesn't completely wreck your life.

The book really comes to life in the rewriting.

Doctor, I had never had anybody like her in my life, she was the fulfillment of my most lascivious adolescent dreams– but marry her, can she be serious? You see, for all her preening and perfumes, she has a very low opinion of herself, and simultaneously– and here is the source of much of our trouble-a ridiculously high opinion of me. And simultaneously, a very low opinion of me! She is one confused Monkey, and, I'm afraid, not too very bright.

When he [Joe Lewis] was asked upon his retirement about his long career, Joe sweetly summed it up in just ten words. 'I did the best I could with what I had'.

Fear presides over these memories, a perpetual fear.Of course no childhood is without its terrors, yet I wonder if I would have been a less frightened boy if Lindbergh hadn't been president or if I hadn't been the offspring of Jews.