Only two classes of books are of universal appeal. The very best and the very worst.

Higher than the beasts, lower than the angels, stuck in our idiot Eden.

And it was a most remarkable, a most moving glance, as if for a moment a lighthouse had looked at me.

The object of the novelist is to keep the reader entirely oblivious of the fact that the author exists - even of the fact he is reading a book.

If you're going to have a character appear in a story long enough to sell a newspaper, he'd better be real enough that you can smell his breath.

What the artist wishes to do — as far as you are concerned — is to take you out of yourself. As far as he is concerned, he wishes to express himself.

Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.

Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has the wrong thing.

Pride and reserve are not the only things in life; perhaps they are not even the best things. But if they happen to be your particular virtues you will go all to pieces if you let them go.

The first thing you have to consider when writing a novel is your story, and then your story - and then your story!

New York is large, glamorous, easy-going, kindly and incurious, but above all it is a crucible - because it is large enough to be incurious.

You don't have any weaknesses.""I have one." He glanced at her.

Being prepared prevents us from getting tripped up by unexpected glitches and surprises.

There are some questions that shouldn't be asked until a person is mature enough to appreciate the answers.

We came equals into this world, and equals shall we go out of it.

Living submerged at the bottom of an ocean of air.

Who are those we love? Only those we do not hate.

If I saw the art around me that I liked, then I wouldn't do art.

I was a waitress years ago when I was first trying to become an actress, waiting tables in New York City.

I wanted to acquire an education, work extremely hard and never deviate from my goal, to make it.

Natural rights [are] the objects for the protection of which society is formed and municipal laws established.