Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion.

Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion.

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.

The wise weigh their words on a scale with gold.

The wise weigh their words on a scale with gold.

The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.

The biggest critics of my books are people who never read them.

Quotes from Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara... are as germane to our highly technological, computerized society as a stagecoach on read more

Quotes from Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara... are as germane to our highly technological, computerized society as a stagecoach on a jet runway at Kennedy airport.

Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes, read more

Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes, and always count their change when it is handed to them.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications.

Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications.

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought read more

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.