Writing ... is practically the only activity a person can do that is not competitive.

Having imagination, it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that, if you were unimaginative, would take you only a minute. Or you might not write the paragraph at all.

The universal object and idol of men of letters is reputation.

Among all kinds of writing, there is none in which authors are more apt to miscarry than in works of humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

Dreiser's English is bum, yet it has a peculiar beauty and excellence. You feel you're reading a rather inadequate translation of a very great foreign novel-Russian, probably.

Between the reputation of the author living and the reputation of the same author dead there is ever a wide discrepancy.

For the creation of a master-work of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment.

Writing comes more easily if you have something to say.

Nothing a man writes can please him as profoundly as something he does with his back, shoulders and hands. For writing is an artificial activity. It is a lonely and private substitute for conversation.

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.