Though there is one part of writing that is solid and you do it no harm by talking about it, the other is fragile, and if you talk about it, the structure cracks and you have nothing.

There is no night life in Spain. They stay up late but they get up late. That is not night life. That is delaying the day.

We who have seen him now, light on his feet, smooth moving as a leopard, a young man with an old man's science, the most beautiful fighting machine I have ever seen, may live to see him fat, slow, old, and bald taking a beating from a younger man. But I would like to hazard a prediction that whoever beats Joe Louis in an honest fight in the next fifteen years will have to get up the floor to do it.

I write description in longhand because that's hardest for me and you're closer to the paper when you work by hand, but I use the typewriter for dialogue because people speak like a typewriter works.

It is very bad for (an artist) to talk about how he (creates). It is not the (artist's) province to explain or to run guided tours through the more difficult country of his work. It's none of their business that you had to learn. Let them think you were born that way.

Do you know how an ugly woman feels? Do you know what it is to be ugly all your life and inside to feel that you are beautiful? It is very rare.

Once in Africa I lost the corkscrew and we were forced to live off food and water for weeks.