The writer is the Faust of modern society, the only surviving individualist in a mass age. To his orthodox contemporaries he seems a semi-madman

After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them

To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company

Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite

After all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style

I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power

I have learned to respect ideas, wherever they come from. Often they come from clients. Account executives often have big creative ideas, regardless of what some writers think

A collection of short stories is generally thought to be a horrendous clinker an enforced courtesy for the elderly writer who wants to display the trophies of his youth, along with his trout flies