The great thing is to last and get your work done and see and hear and learn and understand; and write when there is something that you know; and not before, and not too damned much after.

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

There is nothing you can do except try to write it the way that it was. So you must write each day better than you possibly can and use the sorrow that you have now to make you know how the early sorrow came. And you must always remember the things you believed because if you know them they will be there in the writing and you won’t betray them. The writing is the only progress you make.

He had loved too much, demanded too much, and he wore it all out.

When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea.

Ezra was right half the time, and when he was wrong, he was so wrong you were never in any doubt about it.

Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.