Grace under pressure.

He did not care for the lying at first. He hated it. Then later he had come to like it. It was part of being an insider but it was a very corrupting business.

let us sleep,” he said and he felt the long light body, warm against him, comforting against him, abolishing loneliness against him, magically, by a simple touching of flanks, of shoulders and of feet, making...

I have noticed that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to seek one another’s company and aid in consultation.

I have never seen or heard of such a fish. But I must kill him. I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars.” Imagine if each day a man must...

I belong to this notebook and this pencil.

Named Harris,” Bill said. “Ever know him, Mike? He was in the war, too.””Fortunate fellow,” Mike said. “What times we had. How I wish those dear days were back.

Hail Mary full of Grace the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and...

You wouldn’t believe it. It’s like a wonderful nightmare.””Sure,” I said. “I’d believe anything. Including nightmares.” “What’s the matter? Feel low?””Low as hell.

With so many trees in the city, you could see the spring coming each day until a night of warm wind would bring it suddenly in one morning. Sometimes the heavy cold rains would beat...

She was sitting up now. My arm was around her and she was leaning back against me, and we were quite calm. She was looking into my eyes with that way she had of looking...

Why, darling, I don’t live at all when I’m not with you.

I was trying to learn to write, commencing with the simplest things, and one of the simplest things of all and the most fundamental is violent death.

The fun of talk is to explore, but much of it and all that is irresponsible should not be written. Once written you have to stand by it. You may have said it to see...

And this was the price you paid for sleeping together.

I had drunk much wine and afterward coffee and Strega and I explained, winefully, how we did not do the things we wanted to do; we never did such things.

The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one?”Of course. Who said it?”I don’t know.”He was probably a coward,’ she said. “He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The...

Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without

Do you suffer when you write? I don’t at all. Suffer like a bastard when don’t write, or just before, and feel empty and fucked out afterwards. But never feel as good as while writing.

He had only one thing to do and that was what he should think about and he must think it out clearly and take everything as it came along, and not worry. To worry was...

All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.

Are you a communist?””No I am an anti-fascist””For a long time?””Since I have understood fascism.

Su decisión habia sido permanecer en aguas profundas y tenebrosas, lejos de todas las trampas y cebos y traiciones. Mi decisión fué ir allá a buscarlo, mas allá de toda gente. Mas allá de toda...

You can either buy clothes or buy pictures,” she said. “It’s that simple. No one who is not very rich can do both. Pay no attention to your clothes and no attention at all to...

Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it’s made truly. The thing...

You know you’re writing well when you’re throwing good stuff into the wastebasket.

I ate the end of my piece of cheese and took a swallow of wine. Through the other noise I heard a cough, then came the chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh–then there was a flash, as when a blast-furnace...

The Lord is my shepherdI shall not want him for longHe maketh me to lie down in green pasturesand there are no green pasturesHe leadeth me beside still watersand still waters run deep

You’re going to have things to repent, boy,’ Mr. John had told Nick. ‘That’s one of the best things there is. You can always decide whether to repent them or not. But the thing is...

If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.

I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.

Oh Jake,” Brett said, “We could have had such a damned good time together.”Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.Yes,” I...

wonder what day god created the egg’ ‘how should we know? we should not question. our stay on earth is not for long. let us rejoice and believe and give thanks’. ‘eat a egg

There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show. If a writer omits...

I had an inheritance from my father,It was the moon and the sun.And though I roam all over the world,The spending of it’s never done.

As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.

I don’t know who made the laws; But I know there ain’t no law that you got to go hungry.

Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been brought to the greatest perfection, and it offers a greater range...

He smelled the odor of the pine boughs under him, the piney smell of the crushed needles and the sharper odor of the resinous sap from the cut limbs. … This is the smell I...

All thinking men are atheists.

If a writer stops observing he is finished. Experience is communicated by small details intimately observed.

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a...

The one who is doing his work and getting satisfaction from it is not the one the poverty is hard on.

Go all the way with it. Do not back off. For once, go all the goddamn way with what matters.

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day.

I felt very lonely when they were all there.

He was just a coward and that was the worst luck any many could have.