The whiskey warmed his tongue and the back of his throat, but it did not change his ideas any, and suddenly, looking at himself in the mirror behind the bar, he knew that drinking was never going to do any good to him now. Whatever he had now he had, and it was from now on, and if he drank himself unconscious when he woke up it would be there.

It is impossible to believe the emotional and spiritual intensity and pure, classic beauty that can be produced by a man, an animal, and a piece of scarlet serge draped over a stick.

I’m trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across—not to just depict life—or criticize it—but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it. Things aren’t that way.

You know you’re writing well when you're throwing good stuff into the wastebasket.

When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.

Until you're grown-up they send you to reform school. After you're grown-up they send you to the penitentiary.

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