From the place by the railing at the edge of the tracks on the summer evening I return across the city to my own room. I am vividly aware of my own life that escaped the winter on the boat. How many such lives I have lived. Then I only made a dollar and a half a day and now I sometimes make more than that in a few minutes. How wonderful to be able to write words. ... Again I begin the endless game of reconstructing my own life, jerking it out of the shell that dies, striving to breathe into it beauty and meaning. ... I wonder why my life, why all lives, are not more beautiful.

Everyone knows of the talking artists. Throughout all of the known history of the world they have gathered in rooms and talked. They talk of art and are passionately,almost feverishly, in earnest about it. They think it matters much more than it does.

A man needs a purpose for real health.

In youth there are always two forces fighting in people. The warm unthinking little animal struggles against the thing that reflects and remembers

It may be life is only worthwhile at moments. Perhaps that is all we ought to expect.

If people did not want their stories told, it would be better for them to keep away from me.

I think the whole glory of writing lies in the fact that it forces us out of ourselves and into the lives of others.