They Said It
"It is my ambition to be, as a private individual, abolished and voided from history, leaving it markless, no refuse save the printed books. […] It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too, shall be them both: he made the books and he died."
"I don't care much for facts, am not much interested in them, you can't stand a fact up, you've got to prop it up, and when you move to one side a little and look at it from that angle, it's not thick enough to cast a shadow in that direction."
"I created a cosmos of my own. I can move these people around like God, not only in space but in time too."
"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past."
"All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible."