C. S. Forester

I formed a resolution to never write a word I did not want to write; to think only of my own tastes and ideals, without a thought of those of editors or publishers. ”

When I die there may be a paragraph or two in the newspapers. My name will linger in the British Museum Reading Room catalogue for a space at the head of a long list of books for which no one will ever ask. ”

There is still need to think and plan, but on a different scale, and along different lines. ”

The doctor who applied a stethoscope to my heart was not satisfied. I was told to get my papers with the clerk in the outer hall. I was medically rejected. ”

A man who writes for a living does not have to go anywhere in particular, and he could rarely afford to if he wanted. ”

They managed to find time... to tell me that there was no chance of my being accepted for service and that really I should be surprised to still be alive. ”

The work is with me when I wake up in the morning; it is with me while I eat my breakfast in bed and run through the newspaper, while I shave and bathe and dress. ”

Novel writing is far and away the most exhausting work I know. ”

A whim, a passing mood, readily induces the novelist to move hearth and home elsewhere. He can always plead work as an excuse to get him out of the clutches of bothersome hosts. ”