The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance.

The best form of government is one that is dying, because that means it’s giving way to something else.

Irony - The modern mode: either the devil’s mark or the snorkel of sanity.

The best life for a writer is the life which helps him write the best books he can.

If the writer were more like a reader, he’d be a reader, not a writer. It’s as uncomplicated as that.

He didn’t really like travel, of course. He liked the idea of travel, and the memory of travel, but not travel itself.

To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless.

Everything you invent is true: you can be sure of that. Poetry is a subject as precise as geometry.

...If there is no risk, there is no reward.

Just keep being true to yourself, if you're passionate about something go for it. Don't sacrifice anything, just have fun.

The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.

I can't do talk shows, I don't do them, just because I get really nervous and fidgeting and shaky.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

The only imaginative prose writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past.

There is a real, living unity in our time, as in any other, but it lies submerged under a superficial hubbub of sensation.

Many men start being friendly with women because they are trying to seduce them. I'm not trying to seduce them. I just like hanging out with them.

Agents are still asking for millions of dollars for actors that don't sell one ticket.

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns.