When we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted, because we expected to see an author and find a man.

I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all. If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.

If we pretend to respect the artist at all, we must allow him his freedom of choice, in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify. Art derives a considerable part of its beneficial exercise from flying in the face of presumptions.

This is a fault common to all singers, that among their friends they will never sing when they are asked; unasked, they will never desist.

If my books had been any worse I should not have been invited to Hollywood, and if they had been any better I should not have come.