Wars are caused by undefended wealth. |
We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master |
We have come out of the time when obedience, the acceptance of discipline, intelligent courage and resolution were most important, into that more difficult time when it is a person's duty to understand the world rather than simply fight for it |
Well, Fitz, I looked all through that bible, it was in very fine print and stumbling on that great book Ecclesiastics, read it aloud to all who would listen. Soon I was alone and began cursing the bloody bible because there were no titles in it -- although I found the source of practically every good title you ever heard of. But the boys, principally Kipling, had been there before me and swiped all the good ones so I called the book Men Without Women hoping it would have a large sale among the fairies and old Vassar Girls. |
What is moral is what you feel good after. |
When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea. |
When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen. |
When writing a novel a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature. |
When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes. |
When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first. |
Why kill yourself? Life will do it for you. |
Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure? |
Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up. |
Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work a |
You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself. |