Thomas Wolfe

The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.

In Sleep we lie all naked and alone, in Sleep we are united at the heart of night and darkness, and we are strange and beautiful asleep; for we are dying the darkness and we know no death.

Perhaps this is our strange and haunting paradox here in America - that we are fixed and certain only when we are in movement.

America - it is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the only place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time.

Is this not the true romantic feeling; not to desire to escape life, but to prevent life from escaping you.

A young man is so strong, so mad, so certain, and so lost. He has everything and he is able to use nothing.

Not even the most powerful organs of the press, including Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times, can discover a new artist or certify his work and make it stick. They can only bring you the scores.

If a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know.

Loneliness is and always has been the central and inevitable experience of every man.

So, then, to every man his chance--to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity--to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him--this, seeker, is the promise of America.

A young man is so strong so mad so certain and so lost. He has everything and he is able to use nothing.

Publishing is a very mysterious business. It is hard to predict what kind of sale or reception a book will have, and advertising seems to do very little good.

All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.

Death the last voyage, the longest, and the best.

If a man has talent and can't use it, he's failed. If he uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he uses the whole of it, he has succeeded, and won a satisfaction and triumph few men ever know.

Most of the time we think we're sick, it's all in the mind.

Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs.

You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity.

One belongs to New York instantly. One belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.