They can't yank a novelist like they can a pitcher. A novelist has to go the full nine, even if it kills him.

I do not think I had ever seen a nastier-looking man. Under the black hat, when I had first seen them, the eyes had been those of an unsuccessful rapist.

There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it's like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.

One cat just leads to another.

As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.

One cat just leads to another. The place is so damned big it doesn't really seem as though there were many cats until you see them all moving like a mass migration at feeding time.

We who have seen him now, light on his feet, smooth moving as a leopard, a young man with an old man's science, the most beautiful fighting machine I have ever seen, may live to see him fat, slow, old, and bald taking a beating from a younger man. But I would like to hazard a prediction that whoever beats Joe Louis in an honest fight in the next fifteen years will have to get up the floor to do it.