If I were sufficiently romantic I suppose I'd have killed myself long ago just to make people talk about me. I haven't even got the conviction to make a successful drunkard.

People don't choose their careers; they are engulfed by them.

If there is a special Hades for writers is would be in the forced contemplation of their own works.

Individuality is freedom lived.

The creation of a world view is the work of a generation rather than of an individual, but we each of us, for better or for worse, add our brick to the edifice.

The mind cannot support moral chaos for long. Men are under as strong a compulsion to invent an ethical setting for their behavior as spiders are to weave themselves webs

Democracy evolves where freedom is able to determine its own policy.

I've always thought you should concentrate on paddling your own canoe.

I never see the dawn that I don't say to myself perhaps.

Life is to be used, not just held in the hand like a box of bonbons that nobody eats.

It's rather grisly, isnt it, how soon a living man becomes nothing more than a collection of stocks and bonds and debts and real estate?

Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all of the tricks and has nothing to say.

Unfortunately, people seldom think about the purpose they were uniquely designed to fulfil and don’t ask question of who they are or what their identity is

You can scoff at opinions. You can reject hypotheses. You can discard theories out of hand. But you cannot reject the facts

In real life, one of my friends was killed in a car accident during our sophomore year.

You can read everybody. It's not even interesting to tell the truth because to some extent it's false.

He's hit it fat.... It will probably be short.... It just hit the front edge of the green.... It's got no chance.... It's rolling toward the cup.... Well I'll be damned!

Honestly, I just have to do what's right for me, and what I would tell people is what I believe, which is that tolerance is very important.

The intensity with which young people live demands that they "blank out" as often as possible.

Have you murdered anyone in the last day, week, month, year, decade? Probably not. Then don't worry about it. Give yourself a break. You're probably a really fine person.

He who abstains from anything animate ... will be much more careful not to injure those of his own species. For he who loves the genus will not hate any species of animals.