“Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.”

“Sit down and read. Educate yourself for the coming conflicts.”

“You need that pride in yourself, as well as a sense, when you are sitting on Page 297 of a book, that the book is going to be read, that somebody is going to care. You can't ever be sure about that, but you need the sense that it's important, that it's not typing; it's writing.”

“My mother told me...if you're going to get anywhere, you're going to have to do it yourself, because no one is going to do it for you.”

“You must take a year off, one of these days, before you’re old and tired and weighed down by responsibility. Go away somewhere, and read. Read all the important books. Educate yourself, then you’ll see the world in a different way.”

“Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake. ”