Each day of not writing, of comfort, of being that which he despised, dulled his ability and softened his will to work so that, finally, he did no work at all.

And bed, he thought. Bed is my friend. Just bed, he thought. Bed will be a great thing. It is easy when you are beaten, he thought. I never knew how easy it was. And what beat you, the thought.

People who write fiction, if they had not taken it up, might have become very successful liars.

You make your own luck, Gig. You know what makes a good loser? Practice.

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.

For we have thought the longer thoughts And gone the shorter way. And we have danced to devils' tunes, Shivering home to pray; To serve one master in the night, Another in the day.

But Paris was a very old city and we were young and nothing was simple there.