“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”

“Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.”

“I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.”

“The chief business of the nation, as a nation, is the setting up of heroes, mainly bogus.”

“Every complex problem has a simple solution that doesn't work.”

“I am all the time thinking about poetry and fiction and you.”

“... if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us to break her and bullyher, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured.”

“Who would not spout the family teapot in order to talk with Keats for an hour about poetry, or with Jane Austen about the art of fiction?”