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.

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.

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

No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection.

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

We are always looking for the book it is necessary to read next.

I’m glad I haven’t lived in vain.

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

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

Conquered people tend to be witty.

She was what we used to call a suicide blonde – dyed by her own hand.

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

Hapiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions.

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

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.

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.

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

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

What is art but a way of seeing?

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

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

A man is only as good as what he loves.

In expressing love we belong among the undeveloped countries.

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

Any artist should be grateful for a naive grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.

With a novelist, like a surgeon, you have to get a feeling that you’ve fallen into good hands – someone from whom you can accept the anesthetic with confidence.

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.

A good novel is worth more then the best scientific study.

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

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

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