I have never been able to write with anything more than the left hand of my mind; the right hand has always been engaged in something to do with personal relationships. I don't complain, because I think my left hand's power, as much as it has, is due to its knowledge of what my right hand is doing.

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.

It would be no loss to the world if most of the writers now writing had been strangled at birth.

... there has never been a period in history when there have been necessary killings which has not been instantly followed by a period when there have been unnecessary killings.

Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.

A strong hatred is the best lamp to bear in our hands as we go over the dark places of life, cutting away the dead things men tell us to revere.

Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.