There is nothing like a man for bringing out the animal in an animal.

Do not keep company with people who speak of careers. Not only are such people uninteresting in themselves; they also have no interest in anything interesting. . . . Keep company with people who are interested in the world outside themselves. The one who never asks you what you are working on; who never inquires as to the success of your latest project; who never uses the word career as a noun -- he is your friend.

For those at home, as well as for those in battle, war is curiously disabling. The mere realization that one's country is at war poisons the bloodstream, creates an incessant mood of worry that infiltrates even the most casual moments.

The only reason I wanted 'Making Toast' as the title is that it is a simple gesture of moving on. Every morning there's the bread and you make the toast and you start the day.

Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are alsopracticed in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death--that is, they attempt suicide--twice as often as men, though men are more "successful" because they use surer weapons, like guns.

If you put anger in the writing, then it's like an actor crying on stage. The audience will not cry with the actor and in some way inure itself against the emotion.

Why, for example, do the great writers use anticipation instead of surprise? Because surprise is merely an instrument of the unusual, whereas anticipation of a consequence enlarges our understanding of what is happening.