I think that one is constantly startled by the things that appear before you on the page when you're writing.

At first, there is something you expect of life. Later, there is what life expects of you. By the time you realize these are the same, it can be too late for expectations. What we are being, not what we are to be. They are the same thing.

It's nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of.

Did you ever notice how easy it is to forgive a person any number of faults for one endearing characteristic, for a certain style, or some commitment to life - while someone with many good qualities is insupportable for a single defect if it happens to be a boring one?

For most people it's easier to support an eminent person in deserved disgrace than an obscure one who has been wronged.

That was the trouble with experience; it taught you that most people were capable of anything, so that loyalty was never quite on firm ground -- or, rather, became a matter of pardoning offenses instead of denying their existence.

Human beings need unhappiness at least as much as they need happiness.