“All morons hate it when you call them a moron.”

“An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.”

“Goddam money. It always ends up making you blue as hell.”

“He had a theory, Walt did, that the religious life, and all the agony that goes with it, is just something God sics on people who have the gall to accuse Him of having created an ugly world.”

“How do you know you're going to do something, untill you do it?”

“How long should a man's legs be? Long enough to touch the ground.”

“I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”

“I don't even like old cars. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake.”

“I don't exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.”

“I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.”

“I was about half in love with her by the time we sat down. That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty... you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.”

“If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody.”

“I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm doing is trying to protect myself and my work.”

“I'm quite illiterate, but I read a lot.”

“I'm sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.”

“I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”

“I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life.”

“It was a very stupid thing to do, I'll admit, but I hardly didn't even know I was doing it.”

“Its really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs.”

“Mothers are all slightly insane.”

“People never believe you.”

“People never notice anything.”

“Some stories, my property, have been stolen. Someone's appropriated them. It's an illicit act. It's unfair. Suppose you had a coat you liked, and somebody went into your closet and stole it. That's how I feel.”

“There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. It's peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy.”

“They didn't act like people and they didn't act like actors. It's hard to explain. They acted more like they knew they were celebrities and all. I mean they were good, but they were too good.”

“You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phoney stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart.”