I've discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, 'To hell with you.'

De Tocqueville considered the impulse toward well-being as one of the strongest impulses of a democratic society. He can't be blamed for underestimating the destructive powers generated by this same impulse.

I blame myself for not often enough seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary. Somewhere in his journals, Dostoyevky remarks that a writer can begin anywhere, at the most commonplace thing, scratch around in it long enough, pry and dig away long enough, and lo!, soon he will hit upon the marvelous.

A human soul devoid of longing was a soul deformed, deprived of its highest good, sick unto death.

O Lord! he concluded, forgive all these trespasses. Lead me not into Penn Station.

I think that New York is not the cultural centre of America, but the business and administrative centre of American culture.

A man should be able to hear, and to bear, the worst that could be said of him.