If you're young enough, any kind of writing you do for a short period of time is a marvelous apprenticeship.

I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?

The last paragraph in which you tell what the story is about is almost always best left out.

At the height of the McCarthy period, writers were being hounded.

I am forced to say that I have many fiercer critics than myself.

Critics in New York are made by their dislikes, not by their enthusiasms.

Every novelist has a different purpose-and often several purposes which might even be contradictory.