One of the few things I know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book, give it, give it all, give it now.

For writing a first draft requires from the writer a peculiar internal state which ordinary life does not induce. ... how to set yourself spinning?

The soul may ask God for anything, and never fail.

Self-consciousness is the curse of the city and all that sophistication implies.

How you spend your days is how you spend your life.

You do what you do out of your private love of the thing itself.

Nothing moves a woman so deeply as the boyhood of the man she loves.