A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye.

Tomorrow the world is not the same as today, though God listens with the same ear.

I sometimes confuse myself with the little I know.

To any writer: Teach yourself to work in uncertainty. Many writers are anxious when they begin, or try something new. Even Matisse painted some of his Fauvist pictures in anxiety. Maybe that helped him to simplify. Character, discipline, negative capability count. Write, complete, revise. If it doesn't work, begin something else.

The whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology.

As long as a man stays alive he can't tell what chances will pop up next. But a dead man signs no checks.

First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it.... The first draft of a book is the most uncertain-where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better.