Writers have a rare power not given to anyone else: we can bore people long after we are dead.

What are these unheard of sins you condemn so much - and like so well?

She did her work with the thoroughness of a mind which reveres details and never quite understands them.

In everything was the spirit of children's play - not the rule-ridden, time-killing play of adults that is a preparation for death, but the busy and credulous play of children that is a preparation for life.

Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.

There are dozens of young poets and fictioneers most of them a little insane in the tradition of James Joyce, who, however insane they may be, have refused to be genteel and traditional and dull.

The cocktail filled him with a whirling exhilaration behind which he was aware of devastating desires—to rush places in fast motors, to kiss girls, to sing, to be witty. ... He perceived that he had gifts of profligacy which had been neglected. —chapter 8