A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor.

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

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

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

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

Curiously, the United States is full of writers who have one big work in their life and that's all.

The romantic idea is that everybody around a writer must suffer for his talent. I think a writer is a citizen of humanity, part of his nation, part of his family. He may have to make some compromises.