Malcolm Cowley

"It is the fear of being as dependent as a young child while not being loved as a child is loved but merely being kept alive against one's will."

"They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don't tell you is that you won't miss it very much."

"There would seem to be four stages in the composition of a story. First comes the germ of the story, then a period of more or less conscious meditation, then the first draft, and finally the revision, which may be simply ‘pencil work’ as John O’Hara calls it — that is, minor changes in wording — or may lead to writing several drafts and what amounts to a new work."

"Be kind and considerate with your criticism... It's just as hard to write a bad book as it is to write a good book."

"No complete son of a bitch ever wrote a good sentence."