I imagine that my characters have become much more complicated than when I first began, which would be normal.

If football players were armed with guns, there wouldn't be stadiums large enough to hold the crowds..

I haven't stuck to any formula. Most great writers stick to the same style, but I wanted to be more various.

Kennedy was a man who liked writers and even I got invited to the White House.

The last paragraph in which you tell what the story is about is almost always best left out..

Writing for the theater, you find yourself living a nocturnal life.

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

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 ti….

I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written.

Critics in New York are made by their dislikes, not by their enthusiasms..

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….

In America, we have the feeling of the doomed young artist. Fitzgerald was the great example of that..

A good editor understands what you're talking and writing about and doesn't meddle too much..

My attitudes have changed, but somebody would have to read all my books to find out how they have.

People who light up like Roman candles come down in the dark very quickly..

Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of ….

Writing is like a contact sport, like football. Why do kids play football? They can get hurt on any play, can't they? Yet they can't wait until Satur….

I've gone on the wagon, but my body doesn't believe it..

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

Ernest Hemingway did a great deal toward making the writer an acceptable public figure; obviously, he was no sissy..

I never show anything to anybody until I've finished it.