Like all bad drivers, he [Henry Andrews] thought he was the best driver in the world...

His smile bore the same relation to a real smile as false teeth do to real teeth.

sentences were used by man before words and still come with the readiness of instinct to his lips. They, and not words, are the foundations of all language. ... Your cat has no words, but it has considerable feeling for the architecture of the sentence in relation to the problem of expressing climax.

All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death when we ought to choose life.

I always have beauty around me, for I have but to go to my piano, and trace one of the million designs that have been made by my masters.

International relationships are preordained to be clumsy gestures based on imperfect knowledge.

Bad art is maintained by the neurotic, who is deadly afraid of authentic art because it inspires him to go on living, and he is terrified of life.