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

California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn't really need. You can quote me on that.

All human accomplishment has the same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination.

Death is the dark backing a mirror needs if we are to see anything

Retirement is an illusion. Not a reward but a mantrap. The bankrupt underside of success. A shortcut to death. Golf courses are too much like cemeteries.

... a fellow can't predict what he will pick up in the form of influence.

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.