Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent.

Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

A writer wants something more than money for his work: he wants permanence.