Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.

The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life: try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!

I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension.

It requires more than mere genius to be an author.

Writing is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.

To withdraw myself from myself has ever been my sole, my entire, my sincere motive in scribbling at all.

The last thing we decide in writing a book is what to put first.

You don't write because you want to say something; you write because you've got something to say.