When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they dont really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither. There is no crime which a boy of eleven had not envisaged long ago. His only innocence is, he may not be old enough to desire the fruits of it...his ignorance is, he does not know how to commit it...

A writer strives to express a universal truth in the way that rings the most bells in the shortest amount of time.

It's not when you realize that nothing can help you — religion, pride, anything — it's when you realize that you don't need any aid.

Though children can accept adults as adults, adults can never accept children as anything but adults too.

So the only environment the artist needs is whatever peace, whatever solitude, and whatever pleasure he can get at not too high a cost. All the wrong environment will do is run his blood pressure up; he will spend more time being frustrated or outraged. My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.

Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar.