“The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of a writer.”

“Unless a writer's capable of solitude, he should leave books alone and go into the theater.”

“If every single man and woman, child and baby, acts and conducts itself in a known pattern and breaks no walls and differs with no one and experiments in no way and is not sick and does not endanger the ease and peace of mind or steady unbroken flow of the town, then that unit can disappear and never be heard of.”

“Some day, his mind said, that boy would know what things were in the books and what things were not.”

“The only good writer was a dead writer.”

“I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.”

“A writer of stories is a liar.”