The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. Since man is mortal, the only immortality possible for him is to leave something behind him that is immortal since it will always move.

In Europe, being an artist is a form of behavior; in America, it's an excuse for a form of behavior.

To me, all human behavior is unpredictable and, considering man's frailty... and... the ramshackle universe he functions in, it's... all irrational.

The writer's only responsibility is to his art.

Henry James was one of the nicest old ladies I ever met.