“They can romanticize us so, mirrors, and that is their secret: what a subtle torture it would be to destroy all the mirrors in the world: where then could we look for reassurance of our identities?”

I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.

If there is no mystery, for the artist, to solve inside of his art, then there’s no point in it….for me, every act of the art of solving a mystery.

There is only one unpardonable sin–deliberate cruelty. All else can be forgiven.

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.

Sometimes when I think how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe.

Everybody has to feel superior to somebody,” she said. “But it’s customary to present a little proof before you take the privilege.

It may be normal, darling; but I’d rather be natural.

It is the want to know the end that makes us believe in God, or witchcraft, believe, at least, in something

One of the most difficult things in writing a novel or anything at all is to choose the point of view from which it’s going to be told.

You can’t blame a writer for what the characters say.

Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring.

The good thing about masturbation is that you don’t have to get dressed up for it.

The better the actor, the more stupid he is.

The problem with living outside the law is that you no longer have its protection.

Imagination, of course, can open any door – turn the key and let terror walk right in.

If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy or both-you must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

I do a first draft as passionately and as quickly as I can. I believe a story is valid only when it’s immediate and passionate, when it dances out of your subconscious. If you interfere in any way, you destroy it.

I don’t believe in government. I hate politics. I’m against it. And I hope that sometime this fall, we can destroy part of our government, and next year destroy even more of it. The less government, the happier I will be.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Let us leave a splendid legacy for our children…let us turn to them and say, this you inherit: guard it well, for it is far more precious than money…and once destroyed, nature’s beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.

Communists have become bureaucrats. If anything will destroy us, it is this.

Once destroyed, nature’s beauty cannot be repurchased at any price.

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.