A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
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A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.
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All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac.
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Any artist should be grateful for a nanve grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.
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California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn't really need. You can quote me on that.
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Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining.
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Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.
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Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love.
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I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, "To hell with you."
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I've never turned over a fig leaf yet that didn't have a price tag on the other side.
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If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
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No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection.
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People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.
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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.
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She was what we used to call a suicide blond - dyed by her own hand.
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Take our politicians: they're a bunch of yo-yos. The presidency is now a cross between a popularity contest and a high school debate, with an encyclopedia of cliches the first prize.
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There are evils that have the ability to survive identification and go on for ever... money, for instance, or war.
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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.
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What is art but a way of seeing?
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When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice.
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Whoever wants to reach a distant goal must take small steps.
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You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.
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