“The ideal reader cannot sleep when holding the writer he was meant to be with.”

“A writer fails, not when a reader is not moved; but when, as a reader, the writer is not moved.”

“The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he's written it.”

“There are some catastrophes that a poor writer's pen cannot describe and which he is obliged to leave to the imagination of his readers with a bald statement of the facts.”

“It's this way, see--when a writer first starts out, he gets a big kick from the stuff he does, and the reader doesn't get any;then, after a while, the writer gets a little kick and the reader gets a little kick; and finally, if the writer's any good, he doesn't get any kick at all and the reader gets everything.”

“The writer's object should be to hold the reader's attention. I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning until the end. This is accomplished only when the narrative moves steadily ahead, not when it comes to a weary standstill, overloaded with every item uncovered in the research.”