A book is a sneeze.

What did you do about peeing?

Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: you have to learn the rhythm of respiration, acquire the pace; otherwise you stop right away.

Never make a decision when you need to pee

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

I can’t quit, once I’ve started. I’ve been told I’m pathologically persistent. I can’t quit.

A book is what gets me off: something with heft to it, that you can take in two hands and spread like a woman. Mnyum!

If I were reading a book and happened to strike a wonderful passage I would close the book then and there and go for a walk. I hated the thought of coming to the end of a good book. I would tease it along, delay the inevitable as long as possible, But always, when I hit a great passage, I would stop reading immediately. Out I would go, rain, hail, snow or ice, and chew the cud.

A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

it is extremely trying when one has once tasted pleasure to abstain from its enticements, so the reward of doing this is proportionately great.

The words in this book are all phooey. When you say them, your lips will make slips and back flips and your tongue may end up in Saint Looey!

It's almost impossible to read a fine thing without wanting to do a fine thing.

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.