
“I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn't happiness.”
Source: The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952)
"he once said", quoted by Richard Flanagan, 2005. (Also quoted as: "Any writer who knows what he's doing isn't doing very much.")
Nonfiction works
“I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn't happiness.”
Source: The Bicycle Rider In Beverly Hills (1952)
“True greatness isn't so much what you do as who you are.”
Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 162
Other
Scientists
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy
Paris Review Interview (1990)
Context: I know when it’s the best I can do. It may not be the best there is. Another writer may do it much better. But I know when it’s the best I can do. I know that one of the great arts that the writer develops is the art of saying, No. No, I’m finished. Bye. And leaving it alone. I will not write it into the ground. I will not write the life out of it. I won’t do that.
“There is no man living who isn't capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.”