“The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.”

“All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful, but the beauty is grim.”

“The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets.”

“Big shots are just little shots that keep shooting.”

“Printer's ink has been running a race against gunpowder these many, many years. Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.”

“A doctor is advertised by the bodies he cures. My business is advertised by the minds I stimulate. And let me tell you that the book business is different from other trades. People don't know they want books. I can see just by looking at you that your mind is ill for lack of books but you are blissfully unaware of it!”

“We’ve had bad luck with our kids – they’ve all grown up.”