Oh - oh, why is it that the members of a family feel privileged to treat one another with a cruelty they would not exhibit to the merest stranger?

The grand canyon which yawns between the writer's concept of what he wants to capture in words and what comes through is a cruel abyss.

I would rather regret what I have done than what I have not.

Any writer worth the name is always getting into one thing or getting out of another thing.

Crushed to earth and rising again is an author's gymnastic. Once he fails to struggle to his feet and grab his pen, he will contemplate a fact he should never permit himself to face: that in all probability books have been written, are being written, will be written, better than anything he has done, is doing, or will do.

[Wishing her mother had named her Beulah:] At least you did not sit on your beulah.

writing is the loneliest job in the world. There's always that frustrating chasm to bridge between the concept and the writing of it. We're a harassed tribe, we writers.