"[A]lways get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start."(Interview, The Paris Review, Issue 64, Winter 1975)"
"She looked away. Her attitude seemed to suggest that she had finished with him, and would be obliged if somebody would come and sweep him up."
"There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature."
"He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the bottom."
"I just sit at my typewriter and curse a bit."
"He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more."