I have written chiefly because, though I have often dreaded the necessity, I have found it more painful, in the end, not to write.

O God, let me write books! Please, God, let me write books!

I had no place in any coterie, or in any reciprocal self-advertising. I stood alone. I stood outside. I wanted only to learn. I wanted only to write better.

I suppose I am a born novelist, for the things I imagine are more vital and vivid to me than the things I remember.

I would write of the universal, not the provincial, in human nature.... I would write of characters, not of characteristics.

As far back as I remember, long before I could write, I had played at making stories. But not until I was seven or more, did I begin to pray every night, "O God, let me write books! Please, God, let me write books!"