Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest. It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.

Throw up into your typewriter every morning. Clean up every noon.

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.

There's always something to do if you don't have to work or consider the cost. It's no real fun but the rich don't know that. They never had any. They never want anything very hard except maybe somebody else's wife and that's a pretty pale desire compared with the way a plumber's wife wants new curtains for the living room.

She bent over me again. Blood began to move around in me, like a prospective tenant looking over a house.

I've found that there are only two kinds that are any good: slang that has established itself in the language, and slang that you make up yourself. Everything else is apt to be passe before it gets into print.

I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd better take one along that worked.