Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite read more

Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.

In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather read more

In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.

If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers.

If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers.

In judging others, folks will work overtime for no pay.

In judging others, folks will work overtime for no pay.

Unlike other people, our reviewers are powerful because they believe in nothing.

Unlike other people, our reviewers are powerful because they believe in nothing.

Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of read more

Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of an intolerable world, words appear to change very little. State power has become congenitally deaf, which is why --but the editorialists forget it --terrorists are reduced to bombs and hijacking.

Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he read more

Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised; the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous; the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium.

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on read more

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order read more

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order to become its echo I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence.