nothing is more restful than conformity.

I suspect victims; they win in the long run.

If a theme or idea is too near the surface, the novel becomes simply a tract illustrating an idea.

The story must spring from an impression or perception pressing enough to have made the writer write. It should magnetize the imagination and give pleasure.

Dialogue should convey a sense of spontaneity but eliminate the repetitiveness of real talk.

Temperamentally, the writer exists on happenings, on contacts, conflicts, action and reaction, speed, pressure, tension. Were he acontemplative purely, he would not write.

When one is a child, the disposition of objects, tables and chairs and doors, seems part of the natural order: a house-move lets in chaos - as it does for a dog.