I’m convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.
I will say, too, that lovemaking, if sincere, is one of the best ideas Satan put in the apple she gave to the serpent to give to Eve. The best idea in that apple, though, is making jazz.
I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it’s a very poor scheme for survival.
I was a victim of a series of accidents. As are we all.
I was a chemistry major, but I’m always winding up as a teacher in English departments, so I’ve brought scientific thinking to literature. There’s been very little gratitude for this.
I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.
I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
I think a lot of people, including me, clammed up when a civilian asked about battle, about war. It was fashionable. One of the most impressive ways to tell your war story is to refuse to tell it, you know. Civilians would then have to imagine all kinds of deeds of derring-do.
I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.
I sometimes wondered what the use of any of the arts was. The best thing I could come up with was what I call the canary in the coal mine theory of the arts…
I now make my living by being impolite. I am clumsy at it.
I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.
