“We are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter”

“In the old days, writers used to sit in front of a typewriter and stare out of the window. Nowadays, because of the marvels of convergent technology, the thing you type on and the window you stare out of are now the same thing.”

“When success happens to an English writer, he acquires a new typewriter. When success happens to an American writer, he acquires a new life.”

“take a writer away from his typewriter
and all you have left
is
the sickness
which started him
typing
in the
beginning”

“It has been suggested that an army of monkeys might be trained to pound typewriters at random in the hope that ultimately great works of literature would be produced. Using a coin for the same purpose may save feeding and training expenses and free the monkeys for other monkey business.”

“I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print.”

“Science Fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful.”

“An old racetrack joke reminds you that your program contains all the winners' names. I stare at my typewriter keys with the same thought.”

“Good writers indulge their audience; great writers know better.”

“A man can write one book that can be great, but this doesn't make him a great writer-just the writer of a great book. . . I think a writer has to extend very widely, as well as plunge very deep, to be a great novelist. ”