Anslinger's reefer madness did not caution even the seeds of efficient, intelligent, ruthless action ... The same goes for Hoover, sniveling Nixon, the whole miserable, wretchedly evil lot of them ... not a man among them who could have pulled off a successful coup in a banana republic.

Everything Jack says is to be taken with considerable reserve.

People have nothing to say, but they are afraid of saying nothing, so what they do say comes out flat and vapid and meaningless. The shadow of death is on every face.

Nothing exists until or unless it is observed. An artist is making something exist by observing it. And his hope for other people is that they will also make it exist by observing it. I call it 'creative observation.' Creative viewing.

In Mexico your wishes have a dream power. When you want to see someone, he turns up.

Life is a vacation from two eternities.

It is indeed difficult to make a living as a writer, and my advice to anyone contemplating a literary career is to have some other trade.