In America, we have the feeling of the doomed young artist. Fitzgerald was the great example of that.

I look at everything. God gave me eyes and I look at women and men and subway excavations and moving pictures and the little flowers of the field. I casually inspect the universe.

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

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

An absolutely necessary part of a writer's equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts upon himself.

There are too many books I haven’t read, too many places I haven’t seen, too many memories I haven’t kept long enough.

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