It was like certain dinners I remember from the war. There was much wine, an ignored tension, and a feeling of things coming that you could not prevent happening. Under the wine I lost the disgusted feeling and was happy. It seemed they were all such nice people.

Worry destroys the ability to write. Ill health is bad in the ratio that it produces worry which attacks your subconscious and destroys your nerves.

Develop a built-in bullshit detector.

I don’t. I don’t want anybody else to touch you. I’m silly. I get furious if they touch you.

In the morning there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken.

Remember everything is right until it's wrong. You'll know when it's wrong.

As to Hemingway, I read him for the first time in the early 'forties, something about bells, balls and bulls, and loathed it.