“Nothing is more irritating than to hear honest writers protest about depravity when one is quite certain that they make these noises without knowing what they are protesting about.”

“We've got to make change our national pastime and hold protests more regularly than weekend parties.”

“I wish to protest most strongly about everything.”

“In my definition I am a protest writer, with restraint.”

“To make a statement that one knows is false is more honest than to make a statement that one knows is true.”

“Nothing more then nothing can be said.We make our lives by what we love.Being American, having been trained to be sentimental, I fought for noises … when the war came along, I decided to use only quiet sounds. There seemed to me to be no truth, no good, in anything big.Somebody asked Debussy how he wrote music. He said: “I take all the tones there are, leave out he one’s I don’t want, and use all the others”. Satie said: “When I was young, people told me; you’ll see when you’re fifty years old. Now I’m fifty. I’ve seen nothing”.Slowly as the talk goes on, we are getting nowhere – and that is a pleasure.It is not irritating to be where one is, it is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.If anybody is sleepy, let him go to sleep.All I know about method is that when I’m not working I sometimes think I know something, but when I’m working, it is quit clear I know nothing.”