“Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book -and does”

“It's the whole country that makes or breaks a thing like this. New York has very little to do with it. Now if it were a play, it would be different. New York does make or break a play; but it doesn't make or break a book; it doesn't make or break a magazine. The great mass of the readers are outside of New York and the rural districts are what we have got to go for. They don't read much in New York; they write and talk about what they've written. Don't you worry.”

“Everyone has their own New York in the heart, place where there is hope for everybody.”

“When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas.”

“My new book is going well. It’s practically writing itself! Actually, what I mean is I’m not writing it, my clone is.”

“What writing practice, like Zen practice does is bring you back to the natural state of mind…The mind is raw, full of energy, alive and hungry. It does not think in the way we were brought up to think-well-mannered, congenial.”