Don't ever write anything you don't like yourself and if you do like it, don't take anyone's advice about changing it. They just don't know.

The test of a writer is whether you want to read him again years after he should by the rules be dated.

An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.

There are two kinds of truth; the truth that lights the way and the truth that warms the heart. The first of these is science, and the second is art. Without art science would be as useless as a pair of high forceps in the hands of a plumber. Without science art would become a crude mess of folklore and emotional quackery.

The reading public is intellectually adolescent at best, and it is obvious that what is called ''significant literature'' will only be sold to this public by exactly the same methods as are used to sell it toothpaste, cathartics and automobiles.

He sounded like a man who had slept well and didn't owe too much money.

Writers who get written about become self-conscious. They develop a regrettable habit of looking at themselves through the eyes of other people. They are no longer alone, they have an investment in critical praise, and they think they must protect it. This leads to a diffusion of effort. The writer watches himself as he works. He grows more subtle and he pays for it by loss of organic dash.