"I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil."
"Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you."
"it is all very well for you to write simply and the simpler the better. But do not start to think so damned simply. Know how complicated it is and then state it simply."
"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."
"It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way."
"You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or rather you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love."