First New York was a sort of provincial capital, bigger and richer than Manchester or Marseilles, but not much different in its essential spirit. Then, after the war, it became one among half a dozen world cities. Today it has the appearance of standing alone, as the center of culture in the part of the world that still tries to be civilized.

Authors are sometimes like tomcats: They distrust all the other toms but they are kind to kittens

Writing offers fairly large rewards to a few successful people, but the rewards come late, and most writers are failures.

Talent is what you possess; genius is what possesses you.

They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don't tell you is that you won't miss it very much.

Any fiction should be a story. In any story there are three elements: persons, a situation, and the fact that in the end something has changed. If nothing has changed, it isn't a story.

In matters like writing and painting, a man does what he has to do - if he has to write, why then, he writes; and if he doesn't feel the urgent need of writing, there are dozens of professions in which it is easier to earn a comfortable living.