“But hell, I do like to write letters. Much easier than writing books.”

“When I want to write something I just sit down (or stand up) and do it. Scribble, scribble, nothing could be easier. It helps, naturally, to have something to say.”

“So I write mainly for the fun of it, the hell of it, the duty of it. I enjoy writing and will probly be a scribbler on my dying day, sprawled on some stony trail halfway between two dry waterholes.”

“I’m sure as hell not going to fight over her. I got more interesting things to do than that. There’s nothing more interesting than a woman, George. Not in this world.”

“A writer must be hard to live with: when not working he is miserable, and when he is working he is obsessed. Or so it is with me. Thus my writing life consists of spells of languor alternating with fits and spasms of mad typing. At all times, though, I keep a journal, a record book, and most everything begins in the form of notes scribbled down on the pages of that journal.”

“But it is a writer's duty to write and speak and record the truth, always the truth, no matter whom may be offended.”

“As for writing, that's a cruel hard business. Unless you're very lucky it'll break your heart.”