All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.
That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best - make it all up - but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.
Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.
Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.
I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.
That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.
For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.
best, being good & time
Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.
A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.
Ezra was right half the time, and when he was wrong, he was so wrong you were never in any doubt about it.
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.
Cowardice... is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.
I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it.
If you have a success you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work.
In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.
Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?
Courage is grace under pressure.
Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.
Hesitation increases in relation to risk in equal proportion to age.
Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.
For a war to be just three conditions are necessary - public authority, just cause, right motive.
About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.
It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.
My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.
An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.