The mystery of life--its inexplicability, beauty, cruelty, tenderness, folly . . . has occupied the greater part of my waking thoughts; and in reverence or rage or irony, as the moment or situation might dictate, I have pondered and even demanded of cosmic energy to know Why.

Life is a God-damned, stinking, treacherous game and nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand are bastards.

It is a sad thing to want for happiness, but it is a terrible thing to see another groping about blindly for it, when it is almost within the grasp.

You walk into a room, see a woman, and something happens. It's chemical. What are you going to do about it?

Love is the only thing you can really give in all this world. When you give love, you give everything.

Let no one underestimate the need of pity. We live in a stony universe whose hard, brilliant forces rage fiercely.

If you have that unconquerable urge to write, nothing will stop you from writing.