“Authenticity is boring, credibility is important”

“The realistic style is easy to abuse: from haste, from lack of awareness, from inability to bridge the chasm that lies between what a writer would like to be able to say and what he actually knows how to say. It is easy to fake; brutality is not strength, flipness is not wit, edge-of-the-chair writing can be as boring as flat writing; dalliance with promiscuous blondes can be very dull stuff when described by goaty young men with no other purpose in mind than to describe dalliance with promiscuous blondes.”

“The challenge is to write about real things magically.”

“Scarcely anything in literature is worth a damn except what is written between the lines.”

“Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains. You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.”

“She’d make for a jazzy week-end, but she’d be wearing for a steady diet.”

“It’s so hard for women—even nice women—to realize that their bodies are not irresistible.”