I'm not advocating the strenuous life for everyone or trying to say it's the choice form of life. Anyone who's had the luck or misfortune to be an athlete has to keep his body in shape. The body and mind are closely coordinated. Fattening of the body can lead to fattening of the mind. I would be tempted to say that it can lead to fattening of the soul, but I don't know anything about the soul.

For a poet he threw a very accurate milk bottle.

No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things

I wish I could write well enough to write about aircraft. Faulkner did it very well in Pylon but you cannot do something someone else has done though you might have done it if they hadn't.

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.

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it. Financial security then is a great help as it keeps you from worrying.

Good dialogue is not real speech-it's the illusion of real speech.