Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
One must never judge the writer by the man; but one may fairly judge the man by the writer.
In the middle of the silence in a writer's house lies an invalid: the book being worked on.
My father insisted that I and my sisters not be indoctrinated into any religion at any age.
Only the tone-deaf doubt the power of music, though some feel it more strongly than others.
Love can't be a metaphor anymore. If you try to make literature out of it, it doesn't work.
The Love bird is one hundred percent faithful to his mate-who is locked into the same cage.
The truly ambitious are always as busy on the landings as they are breathless on the stairs.
When I read passages like this, I want to look for the nearest wall to bang my head against.
To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.
Why do you always write poetry? Why do you not write prose? Prose is so much more difficult.
The dominant mood of contemporary American culture is the self-celebration of the peasantry.
If we have only one that can govern, and we chose him... does that mean we're not democratic?
a masterpiece doesn't so much transcend its time as perpetuate it; it keeps its moment alive.
And how can poetry stand up against its new conditions? Its position is perfectly precarious.
A city whose living immediacy is so urgent that when I am in it I lose all sense of the past.
A fellow with the inventiveness of Albert Einstein but with the attention span of Daffy Duck.
It seems that fiction no longer produces work that makes one feel the human condition deeply.
I just feel happy to be in America, like I said, it's the most beautiful country in the world.
When innovations become habits, prescriptions, they must be imagined all over again, made new.
Best selling authors are always worth listening to, even if you choose to ignore their advice.
in New York there's such diversity that there's no one central identity; everyone is marginal.
What Independence Has Come to Mean to Me: The Pain of Solitude. The Pleasure of Self-Knowledge
Cæsar might have married her [Cleopatra], but he had a wife at home. There's always something.
Honest communication is built on truth and integrity and upon respect of the one for the other.
It isn't a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for.
Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
When young we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow loyal to situations and to types.
To speak of morals in art is to speak of legislature in sex. Art is the sex of the imagination.
A man may be said to love most truly that woman in whose company he can feel drowsy in comfort.
Any man that can't find what he is looking for in a thousand women is really looking for a boy.
The Chameleon's face reminded Aristotle of a Baboon. Aristotle wasn't much of a looker himself.
A novel is a static thing that one moves through; a play is a dynamic thing that moves past one.
The person who strays away from the source is unroofed and is like dust blown about by the wind.
What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions.
Young normal tigers do not eat people. If eaten by a tiger you may rest assured he was abnormal.
To the modern spirit nothing is, or can be rightly known, except relatively and under conditions.
One listens to one's lawyer prattle on as long as one can stand it and then signs where indicated.
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
The true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and no other task is of any consequence.
Politics has always been a mud fight - better that citizens jump in the trough than lose interest.
The buttocks are the most aesthetically pleasing part of the body because they are non-functional.
Privilege is provisional. It can be denied, withheld, offered grudgingly, and summarily withdrawn.
I think with art you have to do a bit of transforming of the subject to make the art worth having.
There has been no case made - based on anything other than speculation - that Iraq poses a threat.
I know that luck has a way of happening to people who shoot high, who never sell themselves short.
The calligraphic letter is not entirely a letter, but something that sits between writing and music
My family's the most important thing to me right now, and I just want to go be with them right now.
Whenever a man encounters a woman in a mood he doesn't understand, he wants to know if she's tired.
Impersonal criticism?is like an impersonal fist fight or an impersonal marriage, and as successful.
What passes for woman's intuition is more often intrinsically nothing more than man's transparency.