It wasn't until the Nobel Prize that they really thawed out. They couldn't understand my books, but they could understand $30,000.

It's the most satisfying occupation man has discovered yet, because you never can quite do it as well as you want to, so there's always something to wake up tomorrow morning to do.

At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that the young man must possess or teach himself, training himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance-that is to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is to be-curiosity-to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does, and if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got it or not.

Only the peak feels so sound and stable that the beginning of the falling is hidden for a little while.

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.

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

Don't be 'a writer'. Be writing.