If I was alone I could live so easy. I could go get a job an' work, an' no trouble.

If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced that there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another. The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may sometimes but by no means always find the way to do it.

The basic rule [of writing] given us was simple and heartbreaking. A story to be effective had to convey something from the writer to the reader, and the power of its offering was the measure of its excellence. Outside of that, there were no rules.

With knowledge there is no hope,... without hope I would sit motionless, rusting like unused armor.

Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.

He said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god.

Sometimes when she was alone, and she knew she was alone, she permitted her mind to play in a garden, and she smiled.