You put too much stock in human intelligence, it doesn't annihilate human nature.

I don’t ask writers about their work habits. I really don’t care. Joyce Carol Oates says somewhere that when writers ask each other what time they start working and when they finish and how much time they take for lunch, they’re actually trying to find out, "Is he as crazy as I am?" I don’t need that question answered.

I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning.

I kept waiting for him to lay bare something more than this pointed unobjectionableness, but all that rose to the surface was more surface

This is what you know about someone you have to hate: he charges you with his crime and castigates himself in you.

Doctor doctor, what do you say, lets put the id back in yid

You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility.