My Occupational Hazard Is That

A Society Person Who Is Enthusiastic About Modern Painting Or Truman Capote Is Already Half A Traitor To His Class. It Is Middle-class People Who, Quite Mistakenly, Imagine That A Lively Pursuit Of The Latest In Reading And Painting Will Advance Their Status In The World.

The Strongest Argument For The Un-materialistic Character Of American Life Is The Fact That We Tolerate Conditions That Are, From A Materialistic Point Of View, Intolerable. ... No Nation With Any Sense Of Material Well-being Would Endure The Food We Eat, The Cramped Apartments We Live In, The Noise, The Traffic, The Crowded Subways And Buses. American Life, In Large Cities, At Any Rate, Is A Perpetual Assault On The Senses And The Nerves.

Is It Really So Difficult To Tell A Good Action From A Bad One? I Think One Usually Knows Right Away Or A Moment Afterward, In A Horrid Flash Of Regret.

A Politician Or Political Thinker Who Calls Himself A Political Realist Is Usually Boasting That He Sees Politics, So To Speak, In The Raw; He Is Generally A Proclaimed Cynic And Pessimist Who Makes It His Business To Look Behind Words And Fine Speeches For The Motive. This Motive Is Always Low.

Love Of Truth, Ordinary Common Truth Recognizable To Everyone, Is The Ruling Passion Of The Novel.