A writer should disown everything: not defend a single word.

The writer who's afraid to contradict himself will never write anything.

My favorite aphorisms that I've written are those I don't understand myself.

Never confuse being controversial with having something to say.

Unless you embellish, you can't tell the truth.

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I take out my notebook and write.

Writing to kill time is as good a reason as any.

I write because I don't why I write.

Writing must've been very different in Voltaire's time when writers still felt they had something to say.