When your power comes from others, on approval, you are their slave. Never sacrifice yourselves - never! Whoever urges you to self-sacrifice is worse than a common murderer, who at least cuts your throat himself, without persuading YOU to do it.

When your power comes from others, on approval, you are their slave. Never sacrifice yourselves - never! Whoever urges you to self-sacrifice is worse than a common murderer, who at least cuts your throat himself, without persuading YOU to do it.

I was giving up--being realistic, as people liked to say, meaning the same thing. Being realistic made me feel bitter.

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.

To be a writer you need to see things as they are, and to see things as they are you need a certain basic innocence.

Most of us dont live lives that lend themselves to novelistic expression, because our lives are so fragmented.

In writing you work toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It demands those things of you, then gives them back with a little extra, a surprise to keep you coming. It toughens you and clears your head. I could feel it happening. I was saving my life with every word I wrote, and I knew it.