The truly tragic kind of suffering is the kind produced and defiantly insisted upon by the hero himself so that, instead of making him better, it makes him worse and when he dies he is not reconciled to the law but defiant, that is, damned. Lear is not a tragic hero, Othello is.

America has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a member of an élite which knows the law in some field or other, is an object of distrust and resentment.

Drama is based on the Mistake.

We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.

Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.

A poet's hope: to be, like some valley cheese, local, but prized elsewhere.

It's a pity I am so impatient and careless, as any ordinary person could learn all the techniques of photography in a week. It is the democratic art, i.e. technical skill is practically eliminated - the more foolproof cameras become with focusing and exposure gadgets the better - and artistic quality depends only on choice of subject.