A bookman’s love of books is a love of books, not merely of the information in them.

I remember that the single most vicious letter I ever read was the letter Hemingway wrote Scribners when they asked him to give a blurb for From Here to Eternity. It's there, in the Selected Letters for all to read, an example of a once great writer at his very worst. I doubt that he ever forgave Scribners for publishing James Jones in the first place. War, as Hemingway saw it, belonged to him.

Writing is a form of herding. I herd words into little paragraph-like clusters.

There isn't a thought in my head I care to be alone with for more than five minutes.

Nothing good ever comes without a price.

Incompetents invariably make trouble for people other than themselves.

If you wait, all that happens is that you get older.