We do not wait for inspiration. We work because we've jolly well got to. But when all is said and done, we toil at this particular job because it's turned out to be our particular job, and in a weird sort of way I suppose we may be said to like it.

Expectation is the springboard of achievement.

As usual she had a deceptive air of perspicacity.

You may be able to write a novel, you may not. You will never know until you have worked very hard indeed and written at least part of it. You will never really know until you have written the whole of it and submitted it for publication.

Above all things-read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied.

You must be able to write. You must have a sense of form, of pattern, of design. You must have a respect for and a mastery over words.

It is a curious thing that when one speaks from the heart it is invariably in the worst of taste.