I read my own books sometimes to cheer me when it is hard to write, and then I remember that it was always difficult, and how nearly impossible it was sometimes.

Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.

They arrested us after breakfast.

I've been wondering about Dostoyevsky. How can a man write so badly, so unbelievably badly, and make you feel so deeply?

But perhaps he had enough animal strength and detached intelligence that he could make another start.

It seemed out of place to think of consequences during the fiesta.

No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things