Big doesn't necessarily mean better. Sunflowers aren't better than violets.

I sat staring up at a shelf in my workroom from which thirty-one books identically dressed in neat dark green leather stared back at me with a sort of cold hostility like children who resent their parents. Don't stare at us like that! they said. Don't blame us if we didn't turn out to be the perfection you expected. We didn't ask to be brought into the world.

A writer's working hours are his waking hours. He is working as long as he is conscious and frequently when he isn't.

Anything can have happened in Oklahoma. Practically everything has.

If it's freedom you want, come to Texas. No one there tells you what to do and how you have to do it.

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.

Any garment which is cut to fit you is much more becoming, even if it is not so splendid as a garment which has been cut to fit somebody not of your stature.