Perhaps they were right putting love into books. Perhaps it could not live anywhere else.

Life was created in the valleys. It blew up onto the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts, the old despairs. That's why you must walk up the hills so you can ride down.

The writer has three sources: imagination, observation, and experience

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

I believe man will not merely endure, he will prevail...because he has a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

When I was little there was a picture in one of our books, a dark place into which a single weak ray of light came slanting upon two faces lifted out of the shadow.

The writer's only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies.