For there was a conspiracy of dullness in the world, a universal plan to shut out the resurgences of spirit which might interfere with clockwork. Better to keep your elevation unseen until it is higher than strangers' hands can reach to pull you down to their level.

At the age of fourteen I discovered writing as an escape from a world of reality in which I felt acutely uncomfortable.

We're all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just a work in progress.

America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.

But there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark -- that sort of make everything else seem -- unimportant.

Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.

Don't you just love these long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn't just an hour — but a little bit of eternity dropped in your hands — and who knows what to do with it?