Writing is manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe.

Writing is manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe.

The fact that writers will go through so much to remain writers says something, perhaps everything. It would be far read more

The fact that writers will go through so much to remain writers says something, perhaps everything. It would be far easier (and nearly always more profitable) to become a real estate agent.

I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if read more

I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.

I always tell people that I became a writer not because I went to school but because my mother took read more

I always tell people that I became a writer not because I went to school but because my mother took me to the library. I wanted to become a writer so I could see my name in the card catalog.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let read more

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

If you're a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and read more

If you're a singer you lose your voice. A baseball player loses his arm. A writer gets more knowledge, and if he's good, the older he gets, the better he writes.

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner read more

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.

All autobiography is self-indulgent.

All autobiography is self-indulgent.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.