I rewrote the ending to 'Farewell to Arms,' the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

Wars are caused by undefended wealth.

People are dying to tell you their secrets; it's just a matter of getting the conversation going in the right direction. If you just let people fill the silence, they will let you the most extraordinary things. I sometimes wonder if afterward they remember what they've said.

I don't think people would climb mountains or jump off bridges with parachutes or kayak Class V rapids if those things didn't offer the brief and horrible illusion of imminent death. They would just be complicated, time-consuming endeavors that we'd steer well clear of because they got in the way of real life.

I'm not proud of killing, of being responsible for the death of a single person. I never will be.

Death is the welcome cessation of idiocy.