"Oh, Jake," Bret said, "we could have had such a damned good time together."
"Yes," I said,. "Isn't it pretty to think so?"
--The Sun Also Rises

All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.
--Green Hills of Africa

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have it.
--Interview in the Paris Review

A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
--The Old Man and the Sea