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All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.

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The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.

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I wish I had done everything on earth with you

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Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.

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I could never be a Communist. I could never be regimented. I could never be told what to write.

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Writers aren't exactly people they're a whole lot of people trying to be one person.

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I want excitement; and I don’t care what form it takes or what I pay for it, so long as it makes my heart beat.

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The present was the thing--work to do and someone to love. But not to love too much, for he knew the injury that a father can do to a daughter or a mo...more

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My whole theory of writing I can sum up in one sentence. An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and th...more

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I am glad you are happy--but I never believe much in happiness. I never believe in misery either. Those are things you see on the stage or the screen ...more

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Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions th...more

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It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.

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The more I want to be oblivious, the less I can be. Life and light will not let me be.

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This general eclipse of ambition and determination and fortitude, all of the very qualities on which I have prided myself, is ridiculous, and, I must ...more

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For what it's worth: it's never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find you're not, I hope you ...more