You must avoid giving hostages to fortune, like getting an expensive wife, an expensive house, and a style of living that never lets you aford the time to take the chance to write what you wish.

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

No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys it, even if he doesn't get paid.

I don't think that the writer is regarded as a freak by Americans

My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have

Ernest Hemingway did a great deal toward making the writer an acceptable public figure; obviously, he was no sissy.

You must avoid giving hostages to fortune, like getting an expensive wife, an expensive house, and a style of living that never lets you aford the time to take the chance to write what you wish.