There was that law of life, so cruel and so just, that one must grow or else pay more for remaining the same. - The Deer Park.

We are all so guilty at the way we have allowed the world around us to become more ugly and tasteless every year that we surrender to terror and steep ourselves in it.

The platitude turned on its head is still a platitude

Hip is the sophistication of the wise primitive in a giant jungle.

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

The natural role of twentieth-century man is anxiety.