The Test Of A Writer

I Think A Man Ought To Get Drunk At Least Twice A Year Just On Principle, So He Won't Let Himself Get Snotty About It.

Under The Thinning Fog The Surf Curled And Creamed, Almost Without Sound, Like A Thought Trying To Form Inself On The Edge Of Consciousness.

One Would Think A Writer Would Be Happy Here — If A Writer Is Ever Happy Anywhere.

There Is Something About The Literary Life That Repels Me, All This Desperate Building Of Castles On Cobwebs, The Long-drawn Acrimonious Struggle To Make Something Important Which We All Know Will Be Gone Forever In A Few Years, The Miasma Of Failure Which Is To Me Almost As Offensive As The Cheap Gaudiness Of Popular Success.

Dashiell Hammett Took Murder Out Of Thevenetian Vase And Dropped It Into The Alley.