When I saw her I was in love with her. Everything turned over inside of me. She looked toward the door, saw there was no one, then she sat on the side of the bed and leaned over and kissed me.

We have very primitive emotions,” he said . “It's impossible not to be competitive. Spoils everything, though.

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

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

There can be no great literature in America until her writers have learned to trust her implicitly and love her devoutly.

He had always known what I did not know and what, when I learned it, I was always able to forget. But I did not know that then, although I learned it later.

Later he had seen the things that he could never think of and later still he had seen much worse.