The writer in America isn't part of the culture of this country. He's like a fine dog. People like him around, but he's of no use.

We will have to choose not between color nor race nor religion nor between East and West either, but simply between being slaves and being free. And we will have to choose completely and for good; the time is already past now when we can choose a little of each, a little of both. We can choose a state of slavedom, and if we are powerful enough to be among the top two or three or ten, we can have a certain amount of license - until someone more powerful rises and has us machine-gunned against a cellar wall.

No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors.

the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat

Hemingway shot himself. I don't like a man that takes the short way home.

The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't.

My, my. A body does get around.