That is what we are supposed to do when we are at our best - make it all up - but make it up so truly that later it will happen that way.
If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.
Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.
It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.
I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it.
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.
Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.
When I have an idea, I turn down the flame, as if it were a little alcohol stove, as low as it will go. Then it explodes and that is my idea.