I don't know what it is that makes a writer go to his desk in his shut-off room day after day after year after year unless it is the sure knowledge that not to have done the daily stint of writing that day is infinitely more agonizing than to write.

Opinion! If every one had so little tact as to give their true opinion when it was asked this would be a miserable world.

A story must simmer in its own juice for months or even years before it's ready to serve.

There are only two kinds of people in the world that really count. One kind's wheat and the other kind's emeralds.

writers of novels are so busy being solitary that they haven't time to meet one another. But then, a writer learns nothing from a writer, conversationally. If a writer has anything witty, profound or quotable to say he doesn't say it. He's no fool. He writes it.

Funny, isn't it, how your whole life goes by while you think you're only planning the way you're going to live it?

Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth.