My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whisky.

He [the writer] must, teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and compassion and sacrifice. See Poets & Writers

The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't.

No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors.

You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.

The most important thing is insight, that is to be - curious - to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does.

You can't. You just have to.