I think that everything you do helps you to write if you're a writer. Adversity and success both contribute largely to making you what you are. If you don't experience either one of those, you're being deprived of something.

I've never shown anybody a draft of anything.

Most of my inspiration, if that's the word, came from books themselves.

And I'm a slow writer: five, six hundred words is a good day. That's the reason it took me 20 years to write those million and a half words of the Civil War.

I prize the Depression, for instance, because I learned the value of things in the Depression that a way people who don't have to worry about such things never learned to prize it really, I believe.

My second book, Follow Me Down had some success, got good critical notices, went into a second printing and things like that, but Shiloh was by far the most successful of those first five novels.

If you want to study writing, read Dickens. That's how to study writing, or Faulkner, or D.H. Lawrence, or John Keats. They can teach you everything you need to know about writing.

Of all the passions of mankind, the love of novelty most rules the mind. In search of this, from realm to realm we roam. Our fleets come loaded with every folly home.

I ran into Ku Klux Klan and the threat of hurricanes, and those two things made me decide not to build on the Alabama coast, so we came back to Memphis.

I took five years on the first volume, five years on the second volume, and ten years on the third volume.

When you grow up in a totally segregated society, where everybody around you believes that segregation is proper, you have a hard time. You can't believe how much it's a part of your thinking.

I never cared what kind of grade I got.

Longevity conquers scandal every time.

But the same thing was true in the army. You slept in a barracks with all kinds of people of every nationality, every trade, every character and quality you can imagine, and that was a good experience.

Getting close to books, and spending time by myself, I was obliged to think about things I would never have thought about if I was busy romping around with a brother and sister.

I don't want anything to do with anything mechanical between me and the paper, including a typewriter, and I don't even want a fountain pen between me and the paper.

I think that everything you do helps you to write if you're a writer. Adversity and success both contribute largely to making you what you are. If you don't experience either one of those, you're being deprived of something.

And I really do think that the difficulty of research makes it more real to you than punching a thing to find out how many men were killed at this particular action.

I'm crazy about Grant: his character, his nature, his science in fighting and everything else. But I don't like the idea that he never accepted the blame for anything, always found someone else to blame for any mistake that was ever made, including blaming Prentiss for Shiloh.

I used to write sonnets and various things, and moved from there into writing prose, which, incidentally, is a lot more interesting than poetry, including the rhythms of prose.

I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value, but to have someone else to point out your mistakes is a shortcut of the process.

I began the way nearly everybody I ever heard of - I began writing poetry. And I find that to be quite usual with writers, their trying their hand at poetry.

Shiloh is a wonderfully dramatic battle. The leader of one side is killed, and the other one is going on to glory, and it was the first great battle. It lasted two days.

I abhor the idea of a perfect world. It would bore me to tears.

Well fight them sir til hell freezes over and then sir we will fight them on the ice.

The Civil War defined us as what we are and it opened us to being what we became good and bad things... It was the crossroads of our being and it was a hell of a crossroads.

A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library. The library is the university.

The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.

Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one is adversity.

Something called 'the Oklahoma Standard' became known throughout the world. It means resilience in the face of adversity. It means a strength and compassion that will not be defeated.

Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of his cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: 'It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.

It is courage, courage, courage, that raises the blood of life to crimson splendor. Live bravely and present a brave front to adversity.

By adversity are wrought the greatest works of admiration, and all the fair examples of renown, out of distress and misery are grown.

Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.

There is in every woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.

He knows not his own strength that has not met adversity.

Adversity has the same effect on a man that severe training has on the pugilist: it reduces him to his fighting weight.

You'll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.

I'm used to adversity and working really well in difficult situations. It was hard for me to accept the success.

Weak minds sink under prosperity as well as adversity; but strong and deep ones have two high tides.

The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

Individually and collectively, Cherokee people possess an extraordinary ability to face down adversity and continue moving forward.

A heart well prepared for adversity in bad times hopes, and in good times fears for a change in fortune.

Adversity, and perseverance and all these things can shape you. They can give you a value and a self-esteem that is priceless.

Very often out of adversity that's when the best work comes.

Whatever changes the new era brings, whatever new pathways we take, I am sure that our special relationship with America - forged in adversity, will not change.