What's any artist, but the dregs of his work? the human shambles that follows it around. What's left of the man when the work's done but a shambles of apology.

Say a word, say a thousand to me on the telephone and I shall choose the wrong one to cling to as though you had said it after long deliberation when only I provoked it from you, I will cling to it from among a thousand, to be provoked and hurl it back with something I mean no more than you meant that, something for you to cling to and retreat clinging to.

It is the bliss of childhood that we are being warped most when we know it the least.

Why do you treat me as they do, as though I were exactly what I want to be. Why do we treat people that way?

There is nothing more distressing or tiresome than a writer standing in front of an audience and reading his work.

That's what I can't stand. I know I'll bounce back, and that's what I can't stand.

If it is not beautiful for someone, it does not exist.