I always knew writing a novel was a great thing.

- James Salter

Certain things I remember exactly as they were. They are merely discolored a bit by time, like coins in the pocket of a forgotten suit. Most of the d…

- James Salter

Women fall in love when they get to know you. Men are just the opposite. When they finally know you they're ready to leave

- James Salter

I like men who have known the best and the worst, whose life has been anything but a smooth trip. Storms have battered them, they have lain, sometime…

- James Salter

I'm tired of my life, my clothes, the things I say. I'm hacking away at the surface, as at some kind of gray ice, trying to break through to what is …

- James Salter

There is no complete life. There are only fragments. We are born to have nothing, to have it pour through our hands. And yet, this pouring, this floo…

- James Salter

Dialogue's a method of revelation, of course. A few words of dialogue can reveal worlds about a character.

- James Salter

Normally, what you’re envious of is a book, not a writer: standards, ideas, levels … almost nonexistent things.

- James Salter

What is the ultimate impulse to write? Because all this is going to vanish.

- James Salter