“Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential.”

“Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.”

“Knowledge of what you love somehow comes to you; you don’t have to read nor analyze nor study. If you love a thing enough, knowledge of it seeps into you, with particulars more real than any chart can furnish.”

“A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself. ”

“It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.”

“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.”

“I have done more harm by the falseness of trying to please than by the honesty of trying to hurt.”