For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

To be a successful father... there's one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don't look at it for the first two years.

In order to be a great writer a person must have a built-in, shockproof crap detector.

I am trying to make, before I get through, a picture of the whole world--or as much of it as I have seen. Boiling it down always, rather than spreading it out too thin. (On Writing.)

Cheer up,' I said. 'All countries look just like the moving pictures.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

To have come on all this new world of writing, with time to read in a city like Paris where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were, was like having a great treasure given to you.