50 quotes
American author and journalist (1899–1961)
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."
on Death
"In order to write about life first you must live it."
on Life
"Imagination? It is the one thing beside honesty that a good writer must have. The more he learns from experience the more he can imagine."
on Writing
"It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready."
on Wisdom
"There is no friend as loyal as a book."
"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein."
"you can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another."
on Self Awareness
"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
"It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way."
"You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch. It's sort of what we have instead of God."
on Philosophy
"Don't let yourself slip and get any perfect characters... keep them people, people, people, and don't let them get to be symbols."
"Never delay kissing a pretty girl or opening a bottle of whiskey."
on Joy
"A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not."
on Emotion
"When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen."
on Communication
"Until you're grown-up they send you to reform school. After you're grown-up they send you to the penitentiary."
on Justice
"A man can be destroyed but not defeated."
on Resilience
"People who write fiction, if they had not taken it up, might have become very successful liars."
"You need the devotion to your work that a priest of God has for his."
on Inspirational
"Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you."
"Trying to write something of permanent value is a full-time job."
