Above all things -- read. Read the great stylists who cannot be copied rather than the successful writers who must not be copied.

We do not wait for inspiration. We work because we've jolly well got to. But when all is said and done, we toil at this particular job because it's turned out to be our particular job, and in a weird sort of way I suppose we may be said to like it.

Why do you want to become an author? I will accept only one answer. If it is because you feel you can write better than you can do anything else then go ahead and do it without frills and flourishes. Stick to your present job and write in your spare time: but do it as if it is a whole time job.

I always, by an involuntary act of defensiveness, return to my everyday self: so, I find, have I withdrawn from writing about experiences which have most closely concerned and disturbed me. I have been deflected by my own reticence.

If you don't write about what you know, you're like a barrister and have to do a frightful amount of research for each case.

An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.