The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.

There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man's life to know them the little that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.

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

You write a book like that you're fond of over the years, then you see that happen to it, it's like pissing in your father's beer.

What a writer has to do is write what hasn't been written before or beat dead men at what they have done.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

Modern life ... is often a mechanical oppression and liquor is the only mechanical relief.