I myself, I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel.

An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.

Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.

A poem, a sentence, causes us to see ourselves. I be, and I see my being, at the same time.

In good writing, words become one with things.

The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight.

If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write.

He [the writer] must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed-love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.

A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.

No man can write who is not first a humanitarian.