The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

For a creative writer possession of the ''truth'' is less important than emotional sincerity.

Style may defined as the proper words in the proper places.

The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.

If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you.

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.

The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.

He is outside of everything, and alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary. His beautiful, light imagination is the wing that on the autumn evening just brushes the dusky window.

After all, most writing is done away from the typewriter, away from the desk. I'd say it occurs in the quiet, silent moments, while you're walking or shaving or playing a game, or whatever, or even talking to someone you're not vitally interested in.