New York is not even a city, it's a congerie of rotten villages.

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

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

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.

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.

The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.

If your writing doesn`t keep you up at night, it won`t keep anyone else up either".