"Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold."

"Spring is the time of plans and projects."

"I'm not going to be a hero. I'm going to be a writer."

"There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring."

"The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water."

"No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful."

"Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual."

"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened."

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, crap detector."

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn."

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

"Everything is much simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine."

"My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way."

"There is no friend as loyal as a book."