As in no other form of lute or combat, the conditions are such; the winner takes nothing, neither his ease, nor his pleasure, nor any notion of glory, nor if he wins far enough, will he find anything within himself.

Imagination? It is the one thing beside honesty that a good writer must have. The more he learns from experience the more he can imagine.

When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

Drinking is a way of ending the day.

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.

I started out very quiet and I beat Mr. Turgenev. Then I trained hard and I beat Mr. de Maupassant. I've fought two draws with Mr. Stendhal, and I think I had an edge in the last one. But nobody's going to get me in any ring with Mr. Tolstoy unless I'm crazy or I keep getting better.