“Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure only death can stop it.”

“Cowards die a thousand deaths, but the brave only die once.”

“Read anything I write for the pleasure of reading it. Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading.”

“When I am working on a book or story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day next you hit it again.”

“There is no such thing as great writing - there is only great re-writing!”

“There is nothing you can do except try to write it the way that it was. So you must write each day better than you possibly can and use the sorrow that you have now to make you know how the early sorrow came. And you must always remember the things you believed because if you know them they will be there in the writing and you won’t betray them. The writing is the only progress you make.”

“People who write fiction, if they had not taken it up, might have become very successful liars.”