A city with all the personality of a paper cup. (On Los Angeles)

I belonged in Idle Valley like a pearl onion on a banana split.

Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.

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.

She jerked away from me like a startled fawn might, if I had a startled fawn and it jerked away from me.

There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art, and precious little of that.

Down these mean streets a man must go who is neither tarnished nor afraid