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

I'm not happy when I'm writing, but I'm more unhappy when I'm not.

But suppose, asks the student of the professor, we follow all your structural rules for writing, what about that something else that brings the book alive? What is the formula for that? The formula for that is not included in the curriculum.

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

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.

There is no adequate definition for creative writing, any more than it is possible to describe pain or flavor or color.