If the wind rises it can push us against the flood when it comes.

My working habits are simple: long periods of thinking, short periods of writing.

You are killing me, fish, the old man thought. But you have a right to. Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing than you, brother.

I was young and not gloomy and there were always strange and comic things that happened in the worst time.

Everyone my age had written a novel and I was still having difficulty writing a paragraph.

My training was never to drink after dinner nor before I wrote nor while I was writing.

I've tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I'm afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.