I don't think I would ever write a book with what anybody could call pornography in it, because I feel that pornography is a cheat.... It is an attempt to provide sexual experience by secondhand means. Now sex is a thing which has to be experienced firsthand, if you are really going to understand it, and pornography is rather like trying to find out about a Beethoven symphony by having somebody tell you about it and perhaps hum a few bars. It's not the same thing. Sex is primarily a question of relationships. Pornography is a do-it-yourself kit--a twenty-second best.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One might feel that, at my age, I should look on life with more gravity. After all, I've been privileged to listen, firsthand, to ...some of the most profound thinkers of my day ... who were all beset by gloom over the condition the world had gotten into. Then why can't I view it with anything but amusement?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We hear a great deal of lamentation these days about writers having all taken themselves to the colleges and universities where th...ey live decorously instead of going out and getting firsthand information about life. The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »