Stealing a man's wife, that's nothing, but stealing his car, that's larceny.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Writing a novel is like working on foreign policy. There are problems to be solved. It's not all inspirational.