It is no loss to mankind when one writer decides to call it a day. When a tree falls in the forest, who cares but the monkeys?

And I think that in myself (and perhaps evident in what I write) fear of loss and the corresponding instinct to protect myself against loss are potent forces.

I had written all I was going to write, if the truth had been known, and there is nothing wrong with that. If more writers knew that, the world would be saved a lot of bad books, and more people--men and women alike--could go on to happier, more productive lives.

Finally I do like best of all stories whose necessity is in the implied recognition that someplace out there there exists an urgency—a chaos—, an insanity, a misrule of some dire sort which can end life as we know it but for the fact that this very story is written, this order found, this style determined, the worst averted, and we are beneficiaries of that order by being readers.

For writers - even sportswriters - bad news is always easier than good, since it is, after all, more familiar.

In order to write novels for a living - it's not pathological, but I do think and worry and brood and fidget about stuff that I'm working on.

You can't write ... on the strength of influence. You can only write a good story or a good novel by yourself.

Writing is the only thing I've ever done with persistence, except for being married.

To write you had to read so I backed into reading.