“In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it.”

“I have tried my best to keep my country alive by writing about it.”

“If they want to write about me in a good way, they should write how I do things that are useful. If they want to criticize me, I don't care, I don't mind. But they must criticize me fairly. Usually the criticism is not fair. Or the praise, even the praise sometimes is not fair.”

“Find the Good and Praise it" by Alex Haley”

“What I intended to do was to burn a half dozen of my books and keep warm, so that I could write my story, but when I looked around for titles to burn, I couldn't find any.”

“There isn't much I find interesting to write about in middle-class life.”

“I let him run on, this papier-maché Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe.”

“I wanted to find out why Shelley could write better-sounding poetry than I.”

“However much Rome may be in the habit of speaking and writing, for my own part, I shall give these libellers a lesson in good manners.”

“To write a verse or two is all the praise
That I can raise.”