Never write about a place until you're away from it, because it gives you perspective. Immediately after you've seen something you can give a photographic description of it and make it accurate. That's good practice, but it isn't creative writing.

Take a good rest, small bird," he said. "Then go in and take your chance like any man or bird or fish.

Never fall in love?" "Always," said the count. "I am always in love.

Summer is a discouraging time to work - you don't feel death coming on the way it does in the fall when the boys really put pen to paper.

Having books published is very destructive to writing. It is even worse than making love too much. Because when you make love too much at least you get a damned clarte that is like no other light. A very clear and hollow light.

If a writer stops observing he is finished. But he does not have to observe consciously nor think how it will be useful. Perhaps that would be true at the beginning. But later everything he sees goes into the great reserve of things he knows or has seen.

Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.