You make what seems a simple choice: choose a man or a job or a neighborhood- and what you have chosen is not a man or a job or a neighborhood, but a life.

Somehow I have the feeling that in some book is the great treasure I've been looking for all my life.

A rattlesnake that doesn't bite teaches you nothing.

Each death and departure comes to us as a surprise, a sorrow never anticipated. Life is a long series of farewells; only the circumstances should surprise us.

One can write out of love or hate. Hate tells one a great deal about a person. Love makes one become the person. Love, contrary to legend, is not half as blind, at least for writing purposes, as hate. Love can see the evil and not cease to be love. Hate cannot see the good and remain hate. The writer, writing out of hatred, will, thus, paint a far more partial picture than if he had written out of love.

I am always jumping into the sausage grinder and deciding, even before I’m half ground, that I don’t want to be a sausage after all.

Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary.