Madame, it is an old word and each one takes it new and wears it out himself. It is a word that fills with meaning as a bladder with air and the meaning goes out of it as quickly. It may be punctured as a bladder is punctured and patched and blown up again and if you have not had it does not exist for you. All people talk of it, but those who have had it are marked by it, and I would not wish to speak of it further since of all things it is the most ridiculous to talk of and only fools go through it many times.

I was young and not gloomy and there were always strange and comic things that happened in the worst time.

You know you’re writing well when you're throwing good stuff into the wastebasket.

You never kill any one that you want to kill in a war, he said to himself.

There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.

The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.

When you start to live outside yourself, it's all dangerous.