An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven't been done before.
I think of few heroic actions, which cannot be traced to the artistical impulse. He who does great deeds, does them from his innate sensitiveness to moral beauty.
when you recollect something which belonged in an earlier chapter, do not go back, but jam it in where you are . Discursiveness does not hurt an autobiography in the least.
If I have not been exposed and am not in any danger of pursuit. But I have been exposed, I am pursued - by myself! That is a pursuer that does not readily let go.
I've tried to be totally present, so that when I'm finished with a piece of work, I'm finished. ... The work, once completed, does not need me. The work I'm working on needs my total concentration. The one that's finished doesn't belong to me anymore. It belongs to itself.