The two worst sins of bad taste in fiction are pornography and sentimentality. One is too much sex and the other too much sentiment.

I am very much afraid that to the fiction writer the fact that we shall always have the poor with us is a source of satisfaction,for it means, essentially, that he will always be able to find someone like himself.

The novelist is required to open his eyes on the world around him and look. If what he sees is not highly edifying, he is still required to look. Then he is required to reproduce, with words, what he sees.

Her name was Maude and she drank whisky all day from a fruit jar under the counter.

It's always wrong of course to say that you can't do this or you can't do that in fiction. You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.

The idea of being a writer attracts a good many shiftless people, those who are merely burdened with poetic feelings or afflicted with sensibility.

I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.