We can only write well about our sins because it is too difficult to recall a virtuous act or even whether it was the result of good or evil motives.

What is most appalling in an F. Scott Fitzgerald book is that it is peopleless fiction: Fitzgerald writes about spectral, muscledsuits; dresses, hats, and sleeves which have some sort of vague, libidinous throb. These are plainly the product of sickness.

To write is a humiliation.

Though man is the only beast that can write, he has small reason to be proud of it. When he utters something that is wise it is nothing that the river horse does not know, and most of his creations are the result of accident.

What has a writer to be bombastic about? Whatever good a man may write is the consequence of accident, luck, or surprise, and nobody is more surprised than an honest writer when he makes a good phrase or says something truthful.

A painter can hang his pictures, but a writer can only hang himself.

Those who write for lucre or fame are grosser than the cartel robbers, for they steal the genius of the people, which is its will to resist evil.