I Wrote Much Because I Was Paid

A Novelist Should Not Be Too Intelligent Either, Although... He May Be Permitted To Be An Intellectual.

The Adult Relation To Books Is One Of Absorbing Rather Than Being Absorbed.

Keep Away From Physicians. It Is All Probing And Guessing And Pretending With Them. They Leave It To Nature To Cure In Her Own Time, But They Take The Credit. As Well As Very Fat Fees.

There Is, In Fact, Not Much Point In Writing A Novel Unless You Can Show The Possibility Of Moral Transformation, Or An Increase In Wisdom, Operating In Your Chief Character Or Characters. Even Trashy Bestsellers Show People Changing. When A Fictional Work Fails To Show Change, When It Merely Indicates That Human Character Is Set, Stony, Unregenerable, Then You Are Out Of Field Of The Novel And Into That Of The Fable Or The Allegory. - From The Introduction Of The 1986 Norton Edition

If You Want To Be Considered A Poet, You Will Have To Show Mastery Of The Petrarchan Sonnet Form Or The Sestina. Your Musical Efforts Must Begin With Well-formed Fugues. There Is No Substitute For Craft... Art Begins With Craft, And There Is No Art Until Craft Has Been Mastered.