When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. . . .When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have e made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.

Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

The sea is the same as it has been since before men ever went on it in boats.

If the book is good, is about something that you know, and is truly written, and reading it over you see that this is so, you can let the boys yip and the noise will have that pleasant sound coyotes make on a very cold night when they are out in the snow and you are in your own cabin that you have built or paid for with your work.

No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.

You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.