“Nothing a man writes can please him as profoundly as something he does with his back, shoulders and hands. For writing is an artificial activity. It is a lonely and private substitute for conversation.”
“The only important thing a writer needs is a subject. What the reader hungers after is not accomplished craftsmanship nor even correct grammar but a frank report of the things a writer has done, seen, and thought. None of these can be learned in the library or classroom. They have to be learned in the unsheltered world of living where me get slivers of the truth beaten into their heads.”