"I have always fought for ideas - until I learned that it isn't ideas but grief, struggle, and flashes of vision which enlighten."

"Life for me has been exactly what I thought it would be, a cake, which I have eaten and had too."

"Intellectuals are too sentimental for me."

"In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person."

"Self-preservation is the first responsibility."

"It is rarely that you see an American writer who is not hopelessly sane."

"I was as repelled by the French as I was attracted by their country."

"My greatest enemy is reality. I have fought it successfully for thirty years."

"I defied nothing at all. I ignored the law because I didn't know it existed. It didn't occur to me that anyone would want to curb my inspiration."