Art, at any rate in a novel, must be indissolubly linked with craft.

Not only is there no question of solitude, but in the long run we may not choose our company.

When I read a story, I relive the moment from which it sprang. A scene burned itself into me, a building magnetized me, a mood orseason of Nature's penetrated me, history suddenly appeared to me in some tiny act, or a face had begun to haunt me before I glanced at it.

The writer, like a swimmer caught by an undertow, is borne in an unexpected direction. He is carried to a subject which has awaited him--a subject sometimes no part of his conscious plan. Reality, the reality of sensation, has accumulated where it was least sought. To write is to be captured--captured by some experience to which one may have given hardly a thought.

Mechanical difficulties with language are the outcome of internal difficulties with thought.

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.

Almost everyone admits to hunger during the Opera.... Hunger is so exalting that during a last act you practically levitate.