We in America should see that no man is ever given, no matter how gradually or how noble and excellent the man, the power to put this country into a war which is now being prepared and brought closer each day with all the pre-meditation of a long planned murder. For when you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.

We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.

All you need to do is write truly and not care about what the fate of it is.

I’m trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across—not to just depict life—or criticize it—but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can’t do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can’t believe in it. Things aren’t that way.

It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

I am like a blind pig when I work.

Until you're grown-up they send you to reform school. After you're grown-up they send you to the penitentiary.