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

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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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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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The history of my life is the history of the struggle between an overwhelming urge to write and a combination of circumstances bent on keeping me from...more

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Work like hell! I had 122 rejection slips before I sold a story.

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Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves - that's the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives - experiences so great and...more

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An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional.

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Whether it's something that happened twenty years ago or only yesterday I must start out with an emotion, one that's close to me and that I can unders...more

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I want to be able to do anything with words: handle slashing, flaming descriptions like Wells, and use the paradox with the clarity of Samuel Butler, ...more

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My mind, brightened by the lights and the cheerful tumult, suddenly grasped the fact that all achievement was a placing of emphasis-- a moulding of th...more

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So when the blue smoke of brittle leaves was in the air and the wind blew the wet laundry stiff on the line I decided to come back home.

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What are you going to do? "Can't say - run for president, write -" "Greenwich Village?" "Good heavens, no - I said write - not drink.