I've been wondering about Dostoyevsky. How can a man write so badly, so unbelievably badly, and make you feel so deeply?

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad.

I mistrust all frank and simple people, especially when their stories hold together

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.

Now I am depressed myself,' I said. 'That's why I never think about these things. I never think and yet when I begin to talk I say the things I have found out in my mind without thinking.