“If there is a special Hades for writers is would be in the forced contemplation of their own works.”

“If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works, with all the misconceptions, the omissions, the failures that any finished work of art implies.”

“We work to eat to get the strength to work to eat to get the strength to work.”

“The young man walks by himself, fast but not fast enough, far but not far enough (faces slide out of sight, talk trails into tattered scraps, footsteps tap fainter in alleys); he must catch the last subway, the streetcar, the bus, run up the gangplanks of all the steamboats, register at all the hotels, work in the cities, answer the wantads, learn the trades, take up the jobs, live in all the boardinghouses, sleep in all the beds. One bed is not enough, one job is not enough, one life is not enough. At night, head swimming with wants, he walks by himself alone.”

“If any man has a ghostBourne has a ghosta tiny twisted unscared ghost in a black cloak hopping along the grimy old brick and brownstone streets still left in downtown New York,crying out in a shrill soundless giggle:War is the health of the State.”

“But you’re out of another world old kid … You ought to live on top of the Woolworth Building in an apartment made of cutglass and cherry blossoms.”

“I never see the dawn that I don't say to myself perhaps.”