That nation is proudest and noblest and most exalted which has the greatest number of really great men.

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.

Paris is one of the largest, and certainly it is the pleasantest, of modern American cities.

Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.

The middle class, that prisoner of the barbarian 20th century.

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile. In protest, I declined election to the National Institute of Arts and Letters some years ago, and now I must decline the Pulitzer Prize.

You're so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.