...when men ignite in their hearts a religious fury, they inflict at the same time a blindness on their eyes.

Being goal-oriented instead of self-oriented is crucial. I know so many people who want to be writers. But let me tell you, they really don't want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print. They don't want to go through the work of getting the damn book out. There is a huge difference.

It was the silent time before dawn, along the shores of what had been one of the most beautiful lakes in southern Africa.

Only another writer, someone who had worked his heart out on a good book which sold three thousand copies, could appreciate the thrill that overcame me one April morning in 1973 when Dean Rivers of our small college in Georgia appeared at my classroom door

I think the crucial thing in the writing career is to find what you want to do and how you fit in. What somebody else does is of no concern whatever except as an interesting variation.

The arrogance of the artist is a very profound thing, and it fortifies you.

I wondered how a man ever got an English girl into bed. What did they do with her hockey stick?