Why should I tolerate a perfect stranger at the bedside of my mind?

Some might think that the creativity, imagination, and flights of fancy that give my life meaning are insanity.

Some people, and I am one of them, hate happy ends. We feel cheated. Harm is the norm.

There are some varieties of fiction that I never touch - mystery stories, for instance, which I abhor, and historical novels. I also detest the so-called "powerful" novel - full of commonplace obscenities and torrents of dialog.

There he stood, in the camouflage of sun and shade, disfigured by them and masked by his own nakedness.

Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoievsky as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist.

I think like a genius, I write like a distinguished author, and I speak like a child.... My hemmings and hawings over the telephone cause long-distance callers to switch from their native English to pathetic French. At parties, if I attempt to entertain people with a good story, I have to go back to every other sentence for oral erasures and inserts.... In these circumstances nobody should ask me to submit to an interview if by "interview" a chat between two normal human beings is implied.