I Find The Public Passion For Justice

I Should Love To Do A Novel, About One Abnormal Character Seeing Present-day Life, Very Ordinary Life, Yet Arresting Through It, Abnormality, Until At The End The Reader Sees, And With Little Reluctance, That He Is Not Abnormal At All, And That The Main Character Might As Well Be Himself.

The First Person You Should Think Of Pleasing, In Writing A Book, Is Yourself. If You Can Amuse Yourself For The Length Of Time It Takes To Write A Book, The Publisher And The Readers Can And Will Come Later.

Honesty, For Me, Is Usually The Worst Policy Imaginable.

And No Book, And Possibly No Painting, When It Is Finished, Is Ever Exactly Like The First Dream Of It.

My New Year’s Eve Toast: To All The Devils, Lusts, Passions, Greeds, Envies, Loves, Hates, Strange Desires, Enemies Ghostly And Real, The Army Of Memories, With Which I Do Battle — May They Never Give Me Peace. (new Year's Eve, 1947)