I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?

I never drink while I'm working, but after a few glasses I get ideas that would never have occurred to me dead sober.

No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys it, even if he doesn't get paid.

An absolutely necessary part of a writer's equipment, almost as necessary as talent, is the ability to stand up under punishment, both the punishment the world hands out and the punishment he inflicts upon himself.

Isaac Singer was born in Poland and doesn't write in English. Still, he's an American.

You must avoid giving hostages to fortune, like getting an expensive wife, an expensive house, and a style of living that never lets you aford the time to take the chance to write what you wish.

If you're young enough, any kind of writing you do for a short period of time is a marvelous apprenticeship.

Every novelist has a different purpose-and often several purposes which might even be contradictory.