“There's only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that's a writer sitting down to write.”

“Oh, where are my manners? Do sit down. Pull up a small child.”

“An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.”

“Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.”

“Edvin is one of those persons who write to survive as writers and people; for them being a human and writer is the same thing.”

“Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.”

“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows, and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things only because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.”

“If there is only one person who has the right to write the story of your life, that person is you: write it forcefully.”

“I do not think writers ought ever to sit down and think they must write about some cause, or theme… If they write about their own experiences, something true is going to emerge.”

“It's often a matter of sitting in front of the computer and worrying. It's what writing comes down to--worrying that things aren't going to work out.”