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

Thou wilt go now, rabbit. But I go with thee. As long as there is one of us there is both of us.

I might say that what amateurs call a style is usually only the unavoidable awkwardnesses in first trying to make something that has not heretofore been made. Almost no new classics resemble other previous classics. At first people see only the awkwardness. Then they are not so perceptible. When they show so very awkwardly people think these awkwardnesses are the style and many copy them. This is regrettable.

And how much better to die in all the happy period of undisillusioned youth, to go out in a blaze of light, than to have your body worn out and old and illusions shattered.

If a writer stops observing he is finished. Experience is communicated by small details intimately observed.

All a man has is pride. Sometimes you have it so much it is a sin. We have all done things for pride that we knew were impossible. We didn't care. But a man must implement his pride with intelligence and care.

I'm not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy.