"Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be inter..."
- Edna Ferber
"Books should be cherished, like children, books are for the next generation, like children, like history."
"It sounds so far away and different. I like different places. I like any places that isn't here."
"I think that in order to write really well and convincingly, one must be somewhat poisoned by emotion. Dislike, displeasure, resentment, fault-finding, imagination, passionate remonstrance, a sense of..."
"A writer's working hours are his waking hours. He is working as long as he is conscious and frequently when he isn't."
"Where are you going this hot day, Mis’ DeJong?”Selina sat up very straight. “To Bagdad, Mrs. Pool.”“To — Where’s that? What for?”“To sell my jewels, Mrs. Pool. And to see Aladdin, and Harun-al-Rashid ..."
"[She had] a gay adventuresome spirit that was never to die, though it led her into curious places and she often found, at the end, only a trackless waste from which she had to retrace her steps painfu..."
"That just goes to show, remarked Pearlie, that you must never judge a woman in a kimono or a bathing suit."
"But always, to her, red and green cabbages were to be jade and burgundy, chrysoprase and prophyry. Life has no weapons against a woman like that."
"Awake and asleep the novel is with you, dogging your footsteps. Strange formless bits of material float out from the ether about you and attach themselves to the main body of the story as though they ..."