Until you guys own your own souls you don't own mine. Until you guys can be trusted every time and always, in all times and conditions, to seek the truth out and find it and let the chips fall where they may—until that time comes, I have the right to listen to my conscience, and protect my client the best way I can. Until I'm sure you won't do him more harm than you'll do the truth good. Or until I'm hauled before somebody that can make me talk.

I don’t mind if you don’t like my manners. They’re pretty bad. I grieve over them during the long winter evenings.

The actual writing is what you live for. The rest is something you have to get through in order to arrive at the point.

Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.

I like bars just after they open in the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny. The first quiet drink of the evening in a quiet bar -- that's wonderful.

The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for publication.

I merely say that all reading for pleasure is escape, whether it be Greek, mathematics, astronomy, Benedetto Croce, or The Diary of the Forgotten Man. To say otherwise is to be an intellectual snob, and a juvenile at the art of living.