“There is only one true aristocracy . . . and that is the aristocracy of passionate souls!”

It is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction, for the actual world is less intense than the world of his invention and consequently his life, without recourse to violent disorder, does not seem very substantial.

I try to work every day because you have no refuge but writing.

William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. “In the time of your life–live!”

The strongest influences in my life and my work are always whomever I love.

Youth must be wanton, youth must be quick, Dance to the candle while lasteth the wick.

Take by surprise and the world gives up resistance.

Openings come quickly, sometimes, like blue space in running clouds. A complete overcast, then a blaze of light.

The human heart would never pass the drunk test…. If you took the human heart out of the human body and put a pair of legs on it and told it to walk a straight line, it couldn’t do it.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.

Time doesn’t take away from true friendship, nor does separation.

Don’t you just love these long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn’t just an hour — but a little bit of eternity dropped in your hands — and who knows what to do with it?

A prayer for the wild at heart kept in cages.

Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.

I always said little Truman had a voice so high it could only be detected by bats.

You see, baby, after a glass or two of wine I’m inclined to extravagance.

I think that hate is a feeling that can only exist where there is no understanding.

I have three kids, the oldest is 18 and her friends are going to see it The Aristocrats because they told her they’re going to see it, especially her guy friends.

Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiority s, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.

Monarchy hardens into despotism. Aristocracy contracts into oligarchy. Democracy expands into the supremacy of numbers.

There is an aristocracy of the sensitive. They represent the true human tradition of permanent victory over cruelty and chaos.