It was all those biographies in me yelling, 'We want out. We want to tell you what we've done to you.'

The whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology.

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

Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.

For misery don't blame God. He gives the food but we cook it.

There are no wrong books. What's wrong is the fear of them.

You write by sitting down and writing. There's no particular time or place—you suit yourself, your nature. How one works, assuming he's disciplined, doesn't matter.