I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.

The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the single most valuable investment a writer can make with his time.

I sat down on the edge of a deep soft chair and looked at Mrs Regan. She was worth a stare. She was trouble.

Any man who can write a page of living prose adds something to our life, and the man who can, as I can, is surely the last to resent someone who can do it even better. An artist cannot deny art, nor would he want to. A lover cannot deny love.

He (The Agent) just takes ten per cent of your life.

If you're not tough it's hard to survive in this world; and if you're not kind then you don't deserve to survive.

The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.