... I used words without precautions. I wanted to disappear into them, I fled into the bovaryism of the writer trying to create an effect.

Not literature alone, but society itself is wormed and rotten when language ceases to be respected not merely by advertisers and politicians, but by persons of learning and authority.

There is a stage in any misery when the victim begins to find a deep satisfaction in it.

Writing was a chimney for my blazing ambitions.

a writer's first duty is to be clear. Clarity is an excellent virtue. Like all virtues it can be pursued at ruinous cost. Paid, so far as I am concerned, joyfully.

Think of all the really successful men and women you know. Do you know a single one who didn't learn very young the trick of calling attention to himself in the right quarters?

Sadistic literature is not only inhumane. It is anti-human.