The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move. This is the artist's way of scribbling "Kilroy was here" on the wall of the final and irrevocable oblivion through which he must someday pass.

The books I read are the ones I knew and loved when I was a young man and to which I return as you do to old friends.

We could live like counts. ... If all that money is out there, I might as well hack a little on the side and put the novel off.

Women do have an affinity for evil, for believing that no woman is to be trusted, but that some men are too innocent to protect themselves.

I am not one of those women who can stand things.

We must just stay awake and see evil done for a little while it's not always.

And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a lie.