“What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudo-intellectual masturabtion … whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time.”

“Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time.”

“If [modern artists] hadn’t lobbied for endless subsidies, they would have starved or been forced to go to work long ago. Because the ordinary bloke will not voluntarily pay for ‘art’ that leaves him unmoved.”

“There are books of the same chemical composition as dynamite. The only difference is that a piece of dynamite explodes once, whereas a book explodes a thousand times.”

“But if I am not a criminal, I beg to be permitted to go abroad with my wife temporarily, for at least one year, with the right to return as soon as it becomes possible in our country to serve great ideas in literature without cringing before little men, as soon as there is at least a partial change in the prevailing view concerning the role of the literary artist. (“Letter To Stalin”)”

“We went hand in hand across four lines of avenues. At the corner she was to go right, and I left."I'd like so much to come to your place today and let the blinds down. Today-right this minute" said O, and shyly looked up at me with her round crystal-blue eyes.she's a funny one. But what could I say? She was with me only yesterday, and she knows as well as I do that our next Sex Day is the day after tomorrow. It's just more of her thought getting ahead of itself, like a spark that flies too early in the ignition, which can do some harm at times.Saying goodbye, I kissed her twice-no, I'll tell the truth-three times on those wonderful blue eyes of hers that not the least little cloud ever troubled.”

“And everyone must lose his mind, everyone must! The sooner the better! It is essential — I know it.”