Intellectual sodomy, which comes from the refusal to be simple about plain matters, is as gross and abundant today as sexual perversion and they are nowise different from one another.

Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.

When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

Recognize the cunning man not by the corpses he pays homage to but by the living writers he conspires against with the most shameful weapon, Silence, or the briefest review.

It takes a long time to understand nothing.

Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors.

It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before criticism, which is regarded as a malignant tumor in the imagination.

A strong foe is better than a weak friend.

Narcissus never wrote well nor was a friend.

Focus your intuitive thoughts to identify what is truly worth pursuing.

... We need the sweet pain of anticipation to tell us we are really alive.

The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher.

Day and night - ruthlessly apply key lessons of mankind such as leaving greed, fear and lust to improve the efficiency & effectiveness of life.

For me, there was never an end game for becoming a director.

Success is the power to acquire whatever one demands of life without violating the rights of others.

When people censor themselves they're just as likely to get rid of the good bits as the bad bits.

I don't mind being compared to Whitney (Houston), there are people miles worse to be compared to.

We will live with racism for ever. But senses of self, senses of belonging, senses of us and of others? Those are up for grabs.

Call me a schoolmarm, but few things make me angrier than people not taking good care of library materials.