"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. If you read it you must stop where the slave Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating. But it's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." --Green Hills of Africa, pg 22
"My training was never to drink after dinner nor before I wrote nor while I was writing."
"Scott took LITERATURE too seriously. He never understood that it was just writing as well as you can and finishing what you start."
"Remember to put weather in your god dammed book--weather is very important."
I felt sorry for Hemingway when he said he hoped none of his letters were published, and there they were in Ernest Hemingway on Writing, edited by Larry W. Phillips. He didn't want anyone but the addressed person to read them. However they give such a glimpse into the person he was, that we, the readers, are lucky.
