At all events there is in Brooklyn something that makes me feel at home.

As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive of one's attending upon you; but to question the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

Your thorns are the best part of you.

Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others.

Originality is... a by-product of sincerity.

Camels are snobbish and sheep, unintelligent; water buffaloes, neurasthenic-- even murderous. Reindeer seem over-serious.

Omissions are not accidents.

The hands are the heart's messengers.

The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.

When one cannot appraise out of one's own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.

What is beautiful?Everything that has been loved by someone, That is beautiful.

if [God] doesn't exist, man is the chief of the earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good without God?

He's dreaming with his eyes open, and those that dream with their eyes open are dangerous, for they do not know when their dreams come to an end.

The masculine energy was about survival. The male was the hunter who risked his life and had to be in the fight-flight mode.

I see no reason for recording the obvious.

So there is a personal sense of style for a given work - I don't like a general style, but every work has its own style, and I want to create a style for every work.

I think you need the failures to get the success. You learn more from that.

I'm Keith," he said, "and you're . . . clearly mad, but what's your name?

I wonder if it isn't just cowardice instead of generosity that makes us give tips.

I have resisted the term sociolinguistics for many years, since it implies that there can be a successful linguistic theory or practice which is not social.