Never confuse movement with action.

Mice: What is the best early training for a writer? Y.C.: An unhappy childhood.

I am drunk, seest thou? When I am not drunk I do not talk. You have never heard me talk much. But an intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend his time with fools.

It was considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea.

Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing.... For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

All bad writers are in love with the epic.

If a writer stops observing, he is finished.