"The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning."

"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man."

"About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment."

"The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time."

"There are a lot of people who can't write and maybe shouldn't write."

"Advice to writers: Sometimes you just have to stop writing. Even before you begin."

"Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard."

"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards."

"The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything."

"She was discovering once again that reading and writing were not the same-you couldn't just soak it up then squeeze it out again."