206 Quotes by James Salter

There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real.

One alters the past to form the future but there is a real significance to the pattern which finally appears, which resists all further change.

I like aristocracy. I like the beauty of aristocracy. I like the hierarchical feeling.

I find the most difficult part of writing is to get it down initially because what you have written is usually so terrible that it's disheartening; you don't want to go on. That's what I think is hard - the discouragement that comes from seeing what you have done.

Sometimes you are aware when your great moments are happening, and sometimes they rise from the past. Perhaps it's the same with people.

My ideal is a book that is perfect on every page, that gives you tremendous aesthetic joy on every page. I suppose I am trying to write such a book.

What is the ultimate impulse to write? Because all this is going to vanish.

I always knew writing a novel was a great thing.

I spent the night on a sliver of rock high up on the east face of Long's Peak, climbing with Tom Frost, and slept at the icy feet of the Dru, listening to the lightning crack above me and the thunder roll down. I only did it to write about it. I would never go up on the Grotto Wall for fun.