"

You know you’re writing well when you’re throwing good stuff into the wastebasket.

"

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they really happened and after you are finished reading one you feel that it all happened to y...more

"

Dostoevsky was made by being sent to Siberia. Writers are forged in injustice as a sword is forged.

"

When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or c...more

"

Remember to get the weather in your damn book--weather is very important.

"

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

"

I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris b...more

"

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shockproof shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it.

"

Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing.... For he does his work alone and if he is a good...more

"

The writer must write what he has to say not speak it.

"

Up in that room I decided that I would write one story about each thing that I knew about. I was trying to do this all the time I was writing, and it ...more

"

The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.

"

It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

"

You need the devotion to your work that a priest of God has for his.

"

Prose is architecture and the Baroque age is over.