The Hand That Holds The Money Cracks

I Make No Conscious Effort To Be Tough, Or Hard-boiled, Or Grim, Or Any Of The Things I Am Usually Called. I Merely Try To Write As The Character Would Write, And I Never Forget That The Average Man, From The Fields, The Streets, The Bars, The Offices And Even The Gutters Of His Country, Has Acquired A Vividness Of Speech That Goes Beyond Anything I Could Invent, And That If I Stick To This Heritage, This Logos Of The American Countryside, I Shall Attain A Maximum Of Effectiveness With Very Little Effort.

A Lot Of Novelists Start Late-conrad, Pirandello, Even Mark Twain. When You're Young, Chess Is All Right, And Music And Poetry. But Novel-writing Is Something Else. It Has To Be Learned, But It Can't Be Taught. This Bunkum And Stinkum Of College Creative Writing Courses! The Academics Don't Know That The Only Thing You Can Do For Someone Who Wants To Write Is To Buy Him A Typewriter.

The Hand That Holds The Money Cracks The Whip.

When It’s Too Good, You Do It Over Again. Too Good Is Too Easy. If It’s Too Easy You Have To Worry. If You’re Not Lying Awake At Night Worrying About It, The Reader Isn’t Going To, Either. I Always Know That When I Get A Good Night’s Sleep, The Next Day I’m Not Going To Get Any Work Done. Writing A Novel Is Like Working On Foreign Policy. There Are Problems To Be Solved. It’s Not All Inspirational.

You Usually Can Tell When A Writer Is Going Down Hill By The Size Of His Liquor Bill.