I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.

To say goodbye is to die a little.

Any man who can write a page of living prose adds something to our life, and the man who can, as I can, is surely the last to resent someone who can do it even better. An artist cannot deny art, nor would he want to. A lover cannot deny love.

A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.

Television is just one more facet of that considerable segment of our society that never had any standard but the soft buck.