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.

The writer is a writer because he cannot help it. It is a compulsion.

A woman can look both moral and exciting... if she also looks as if it was quite a struggle.

Writing, to be memorable, must be done in a state of impassioned serenity.

I never would just open a door and walk through, I had to bust it down for the hell of it. I just naturally liked doing things the hard way.

You lose in the end unless you know how the wheel is fixed or can fix it yourself.

There is an interesting resemblance in the speeches of dictators, no matter what country they may hail from or what language they may speak.