Civilization begins with distillation

What a writer's obituary should read - he wrote the books, then he died.

A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.

I don't care much for facts, am not much interested in them, you can't stand a fact up, you've got to prop it up, and when you move to one side a little and look at it from that angle, it's not thick enough to cast a shadow in that direction.

I only write when I feel the inspiration. Fortunately, inspiration strikes at 10:00 o'clock every day.

And sure enough, even waiting will end...if you can just wait long enough.

They will endure. They are better than we are. Stronger than we are. Their vices are vices aped from white men or that white men and bondage have taught them: improvidence and intemperance and evasion-not laziness: evasion: of what white men had set them to, not for their aggrandizement or even comfort but his own.