“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.”

“There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer's time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments—moments of sustained creation—when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a writer's time isn't worth the paper he is not writing anything on.”

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.”

“Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man.”

“An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.”

“The young writer should learn to spot them: words that at first glance seem freighted with delicious meaning, but that soon burst in the air, leaving nothing but a memory of bright sound.”

“The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in the blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up.”