Its [Resistance] aim is to shove us away, distract us from doing our work.

To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.

Someone once asked Somerset Maughham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. "I write only when inspiration strikes," he replied. "Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp.

The song we’re composing already exists in potential. Our work is to find it.

The only intercourse possible between the knight and the dragon is battle.

When you're a working writer, sooner or later friends and acquaintances will get you alone and confide that they, too, have a book in them.

The great thing about writing about the ancient Spartans or Athenians is that so much knowledge is no longer extant that no one, except maybe a Cambridge or Oxford don, can call you out and prove you wrong.