“A fool can throw a stone in a pond that 100 wise men can not get out.”

“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.”

“A man is only as good as what he loves.”

“A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.”

“All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac.”

“California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn't really need. You can quote me on that.”

“Conquered people tend to be witty.”

“Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining.”

“Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.”

“Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love.”

“Happiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions.”

“I think that New York is not the cultural centre of America, but the business and administrative centre of American culture.”

“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.”

“I'm glad I haven't lived in vain.”

“In expressing love we belong among the undeveloped countries.”

“In Los Angeles all the loose objects in the country were collected, as if America had been tilted and everything that wasn't tightly screwed down had slid into Southern California.”

“I've never turned over a fig leaf yet that didn't have a price tag on the other side.”

“No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection.”

“People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.”

“Psychoanalysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious. The Unconscious by definition is what you are not conscious of. But the Analysts already know what's in it - they should, because they put it all in beforehand.”

“There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war.”

“There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are and what this life is for.”

“What is art but a way of seeing?”

“When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.”

“Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps.”

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”