I seem to have the blind self-acceptance of the eccentric who can't conceive that his eccentricities are not clearly understood.

Here we write well when we expose frauds and hypocrites. We are great at counting warts and blemishes and weighting feet of clay. In expressing love, we belong among the underdeveloped countries.

I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.

You have to fight for your life. That's the chief condition on which you hold it.

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

You're all alone when you're a writer. Sometimes you just feel you need a humanity bath. Even a ride on the subway will do that. But it's much more interesting to talk about books. After all, that's what life used to be for writers: they talk books, politics, history, America. Nothing has replaced that.

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