Never insult seven men when all your packing is a six-shooter.
Every once in a while I feel the tremendous force of the novel. But it does not stay with me.
Jealousy is an unjust and stifling thing.
This motion-picture muddle had distracted me from my writing.
Today I began the novel that I determined to be great.
Writing was like digging coal. I sweat blood. The spell is on me.
Fishermen, no matter what supreme good fortune befalls them, cannot ever be absolutely satisfied. It is a fundamental weakness of intellect.
It was a decent New Year’s, but it took a million officers to make it so.
There are hours when I must force the novel out of my mind and be interested in the children.
The Indian story has never been written. Maybe I am the man to do it.
I did not have one bad spell during writing – an unprecedented record.
I love my work but do not know how I write it.
I see so much more than I used to see. The effect has been to depress and sadden and hurt me terribly.
I will see this game of life out to its bitter end.
I am tired. My arm aches. My head boils. My feet are cold. But I am not aware of any weakness.
No one connected intimately with a writer has any appreciation of his temperament, except to think him overdoing everything.
I must go deeper and even stronger into my treasure mine and stint nothing of time, toil, or torture.
Before exulatation had vanished, I felt as if I had been granted a marvellous privilege. Out of the inscrutable waters a beautiful fish had somehow leaped to show me fleetingly the life and spirit of his element.
These critics who crucify me do not guess the littlest part of my sincerity. They must be burned in a blaze. I cannot learn from them.
Adam Larey gazed with hard and wondering eyes down the silent current of the red river upon which he meant to drift away into the desert.