I make no conscious effort to be tough, or hard-boiled, or grim, or any of the things I am usually called. I merely try to write as the character would write, and I never forget that the average man, from the fields, the streets, the bars, the offices and even the gutters of his country, has acquired a vividness of speech that goes beyond anything I could invent, and that if I stick to this heritage, this logos of the American countryside, I shall attain a maximum of effectiveness with very little effort.

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

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.

If you have to do it, you can do it.

Yes, I have actually mined coal, and distilled liquor, as well as seen a girl in a pink dress, and seen her take it off. I am 54 years old, weigh 220 pounds, and look like the chief dispatcher of a long-distance driving concern. I am a registered Democrat. I drink.

The hand that holds the money cracks the whip.

If you can't write like New York, you have no business living in New York and making New York the locale of your stories.