The only two kinds of books could earn an American writer a living are cookbooks and detective novels.

Opinions, from experts, cost money.

I understand the technique of eccentricity; it would be futile for a man to labor at establishing a reputation for oddity if he were ready at the slightest provocation to revert to normal action.

What the tongue has promised, the body must submit to.

The only thing I want is something I can't have; and that is to know if, 100 years from now, people will still buy my books.

War doesn't mature men; it merely pickles them in the brine of disgust and dread.

I cannot agree that mountain climbing is merely one manifestation of man's spiritual aspirations. I think instead it is a hysterical paroxysm of his infantile vanity.