“Meeks was telling him about the value of work. He said that it had been his personal experience that if you wanted to get ahead, you had to work. He said this was the law of life and it was no way ...”

“No one can be an atheist who does not know all things. Only God is an atheist.”

“He loved her because it was his nature to do so, but there were times when he could not endure her love for him. There were times when it became nothing but pure idiot mystery...”

“Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.”

“Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”

“I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.”

“Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do to face the fact, let us sa...”

“When reading a book, one hopes it doesnt turn into a painful process. Predictable is bad enough. Laborious is acceptable if the labor produces fruit. But with painfully bad writing, all one can do ...”

“This too to remember. If a man writes clearly enough any one can see if he fakes. If he mystifies to avoid a straight statement, which is very different from breaking so-called rules of syntax or g...”

“No one want to be an imitation of another”

“There is only one thing which is generally safe from plagiarism -- self-denial.”

“An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.”