Everything is very quiet, the streets are never crowded, and the people one dislikes are out of town.

What is being said is the effect of something that has happened; at the same time, what is being said is in itself something happening, which will, in turn, leave its effect.

Roughly, the action of a character should be unpredictable before it has been shown, inevitable when it has been shown. In the first half of a novel, the unpredictability should be the more striking. In the second half, the inevitability should be the more striking.

There's something so showy about desperation, it takes hard wits to see it's a grandiose form of funk.

What's the matter with this country is the matter with the lot of us individually - our sense of personality is a sense of outrage.

I pity people who do not care for Society. They are poorer for the oblation they do not make.

Dialogue should show the relationships among people.