A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself.

As contagion of sickness makes sickness, contagion of trust can make trust.

We are suffering from too much sarcasm.

If technique is of no interest to a writer, I doubt that the writer is an artist.

Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others.

In a poem the excitement has to maintain itself. I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of a fabric is governed by gravity.

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

Poetry is all nouns and verbs.

When one cannot appraise out of one's own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.

I see no reason for calling my work poetry except that there is no other category in which to put it.

If you will tell me why the fen appears impassable, I then will tell you why I think that I can cross it if I try.

Superior people never make long visits.

Psychology which explains everything explains nothing, and we are still in doubt.

It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing.

It is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment without having a critic, forever, like the old man of the sea, upon his back.

A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself.

You're not free until you've been made captive by supreme belief.

The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease.

There never was a war that was not inward.

My father used to say superior people never make long visits.

Impatience is the mark of independence, not of bondage.

Beauty is everlasting And dust is for a time.

Originality is a by product of sincerity.

They fought the enemy we fight fat living and self pity. Shine o shine unfalsifying sun on this sick scene.

The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence not in silence but restraint.

The Heart That Gives Gathers.

Originality is a by product of sincerity

Revision is its own reward.

Only imagination that towers can reproduce evanescence and render rigidity flexible.

Arnold Bennett was a writer I admired. He was actually taking notes at his father's deathbed.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.

A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.

A writer may tell me that he thinks man will ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him.

The most important training, though, is to experience life as a writer, questioning everything, inventing multiple explanations for everything. If you do that, all the other things will come; if you don't, there's no hope for you.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there.

It's essential not to have an ideology, not to be a member of a political party. While the writer can have certain political views, he has to be careful not to have his hands tied.

I was never really a writer, I was always more of a performer.

Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer.

Well see, I'm a good enough writer that not everybody in my books talks exactly like I do.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

Here I am, where I ought to be. A writer must have a place where he or she feels this, a place to love and be irritated with.

Nowadays I'm not even sure if newspapers take into account whether a person is a good writer.

Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.

You know, Mamet is not a huge writer of female parts. Most of his movies don't even have women in them, so I'm lucky I'm in it at all.