Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.

A writer survives in spite of his beliefs.

Good writers are monotonous, like good composers. They keep trying to perfect the one problem they were born to understand.

Every true writer is like a bird; he repeats the same song, the same theme, all his life. For me, this theme as always been revolt.

Yes, one uses what one knows, but autobiography means something else. I should never be able to write a real autobiography; I always end by falsifying and fictionalizing—I’m a liar, in fact. That means I’m a novelist, after all. I write about what I know.

This thought strengthened in me my belief that all men, without exception, deserve to be pitied, if only because they are alive.

I do not foresee a time when I shall feel that I have nothing to say.