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

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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

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You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writ...more

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

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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

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Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.

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

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

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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

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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.

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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

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Imagination? It is the one thing beside honesty that a good writer must have. The more he learns from experience the more he can imagine.

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

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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

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The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.