There was no really good true war book during the entire four years of the war. The only true writing that came through during the war was in poetry. One reason for this is that poets are not arrested as quickly as prose writers.

If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?

Develop a built-in bullshit detector.

The better the writers the less they will speak about what they have written themselves.

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

And the ones who would not make war? Can they stop it?