Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world.

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.

No one escapes the wilderness on the way to the promised land.

The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, & it smells good. Writing is mere writing, literature is mere. It appeals only to the subtlest senses—the imagination’s vision, & the imagination’s hearing—& the moral sense, & the intellect. This writing that you do, that so thrills you, that so rocks & exhilarates you, as if you were dancing next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else.

Private life, book life, took place where words met imagination without passing through the world.

Johnston's books are beautifully written and among the funniest I have ever read.

The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less.