Surely heaven must have something of the color and shape of whatever village or hill or cottage of which the believer says, This is my own.

Unless you're ashamed of yourself now and then, you're not honest

I had learned a little about writing from Soldier's Pay - how to approach language, words: not with seriousness so much as an essayist does, but with a kind of alert respect, as you approach dynamite; even with joy, as you approach women: perhaps with the same secretly unscrupulous intentions.

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done. The writer's only responsibility is to his art.

To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.

My, my. A body does get around.

any live man is better than any dead man but no live or dead man is very much better than any other live or dead man