A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That's why there are so few good
conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.
All literature is gossip.
Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.
Fame is only good for one thing - they will cash your check in a small town.
Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.
Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can't have too many friends because then you're just not really friends.
I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.
I can see every monster as they come in.
I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true.
I got this idea of doing a really serious big work-it would be precisely like a novel, with a single difference: Every word of it would be true from beginning to end.
My major regret in life is that my childhood was unnecessarily lonely.
No one will ever know what 'In Cold Blood' took out of me. It scraped me right down to the marrow of my bones. It nearly killed me. I think, in a way, it did kill me.
Sometimes when I think how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe.
That isn't writing at all, it's typing.