“All you need do, Bernie,she gulped her toast soaked in coffee, is present the truth as fiction.”

“And yet Curts a real writer too. His machinery is stuck, thats all.”

“Curt, my husband, is a writer, and hell never write again. Thats our funeral, as they say down south. Now in your case, my pet, youre married to a phenomenon of our own special epoch, a man who cou...”

“The last human of importance the American people have been able to keep in the working end of their brain is your own Chicago triggerman, Dillinger. After him they kind of lost hold on keeping whos...”

“Hes America in action opposed to quality.”

“But failure has kept Curt at home like a nice warm dachshund.”

“If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write!”

“You can write nothing of value unless you give yourself wholly to the the theme -- and when you so give yourself -- you lose appetite ans sleep -- it cannot be helped --”

“If you're a writer, the answer to everything is yes.”