If my books had been any worse, I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better, I should not have come.

She jerked away from me like a startled fawn might, if I had a startled fawn and it jerked away from me.

Television is just one more facet of that considerable segment of our society that never had any standard but the soft buck.

The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers.

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.

The moment a man begins to talk about technique that's proof that he is fresh out of ideas.

The moment a man sets his thoughts down on paper, however secretly, he is in a sense writing for publication.

The streets were dark with something more than night.

Woe, woe, woe... in a little while we shall all be dead. Therefore let us behave as though we were dead already.

Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.

It is pretty obvious that the debasement of the human mind caused by a constant flow of fraudulent advertising is no trivial thing. There is more than one way to conquer a country.

The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture.

Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off.

From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away.

The minute you try to talk business with him he takes the attitude that he is a gentleman and a scholar, and the moment you try to approach him on the level of his moral integrity he starts to talk business.

I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd better take one along that worked.

Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say.

I think a man ought to get drunk at least twice a year just on principle, so he won't let himself get snotty about it.

It is not a fragrant world.

She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket.