‚Nation‘ was one that I’d have killed myself if I hadn’t written it. It was absolutely important to me that I wrote it. It was good for my soul.

I have always reckoned the dignity of the republic of first importance and preferable to life.

Becoming a writer is not a ‚career decision‘ like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don’t choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you’re not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days.

My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.

A fortunate author can write maybe twelve novels in his lifetime.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.

I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

College isn’t in everyone’s hearts. I am living proof, though, that school doesn’t mess up your plans. It gives you more experiences to write about.

It’s not easy to define poetry.

In writing, I apply my feminine side and respect the mystery involved in creation.

I remember very little about writing the first series of ‚Hitchhiker’s.‘ It’s almost as if someone else wrote it.

A novel is a work of poetry. In order to write it, one must have tranquility of spirit and of impression.

I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.

Charlotte Bronte was writing about sex. I supposed Jane Austen was, too. Where do you get a hero like Darcy unless you are writing about sex?

It may be that the most striking thing about members of my literary generation in retrospect will be that we were allowed to say absolutely anything without fear of punishment.

Whenever I write a novel, I have a strong sense that I am doing something I was unable to do before. With each new work, I move up a step and discover something new inside me.

I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition.

Sure, women sportswriters look when they’re in the clubhouse. Read their stories. How else do you explain a capital letter in the middle of a word?

In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write but evidently can’t read. If they could read their stuff, they’d stop writing.

When I write, I try to become different characters.

All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

Meditation has been a loyal friend to me. It has helped me write my books.

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.

Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic.

If I haven’t any talent for writing books or newspaper articles, well, then I can always write for myself.

An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.

A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.

The difference is slight, to the influence of an author, whether he is read by five hundred readers, or by five hundred thousand; if he can select the five hundred, he reaches the five hundred thousand.

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

Reading and writing are connected. I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

Whatever the reviewers feel about ‚The Casual Vacancy‘, it is what I wanted it to be, and you can’t say fairer than that as a writer.

I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine… before she realizes she’s reading.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

Writing has always had that tactile quality for me. It’s a physical experience.

I’m writing an unauthorized autobiography.

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

I always tell audiences when I talk about writing: Writing isn’t something I do; writing is something that I am. I am writing – it’s just an expression of me.

It’s with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.

You are important enough to ask and you are blessed enough to receive back.

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.

I’ve been writing since I was really young, so I considered myself a writer for a really long time.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

I don’t think there’s such a thing as autobiographical fiction. If I say it happened, it happened, even if only in my mind.

There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.

If you’re nice to me I’ll never write anything bad about you.

In my younger days, I was trying to write sophisticated prose and fantastic stories.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

Sometimes I’ve called writing a disease. If so, I’m glad that it caught me.

I’ve just finished my 20th book this past year and I’m working on my 21st book about the Middle East right now that I’ll finish this year. And I get up early in the morning and when I get tired of the computer and tired of doing research, I walk 20 steps out to my woodshop and I either build furniture or paint paintings. I’m an artist too.

It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports.

I’m always just surprised when someone writes something about me.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

My work and my family are very important to me.

I’m so glad I never feel important, it does complicate life!

I always have to be writing.

The first stories I wrote when I was 12 were about Mars and landing on Mars.