“Children, Hadley thinks to herself, children are more civilised than this gang on the sauce.”

“But writers and their woes: they couldn't be parted. Not for anything.”

“She kissed him but he didn't seem to recognize it.”

“The hangover: such a cure, she thinks, for overthinking.”

“The longer I don't write, the more I hurt.”

“I want to be a good man, a good writer.""Be one or the other, Ernest, not both.”

“If a man does not work passionately - even furiously - at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God.”

“I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prov...”

“Not everything you're good at is what you're called to do.”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”

“Hide not your talents, they for use were made,What's a sundial in the shade?”

“The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it. ”

“Talent is extremely common. What is rare is the willingness to endure the life of the writer.”