A lot of novelists start late-Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But novel-writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can't be taught. This bunkum and stinkum of college creative writing courses! The academics don't know that the only thing you can do for someone who wants to write is to buy him a typewriter.

She was a little given to rehearsing things in her mind, and having imaginary triumphs over people who had upset her in one way and another.

I loved her like a rabbit loves a rattlesnake

You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it’s working on; then you can write a novel.

Love, when you get fear in it, it's not love any more. It's hate.

You usually can tell when a writer is going down hill by the size of his liquor bill.

I write of the wish that comes true--for some reason, a terrifying thought.