Yes, I get dry spells. Sometimes I can't turn out a thing for three months. When one of those spells comes on I quit trying to work and go out and see something of life. You can't write a story that's got any life in it by sitting at a writing table and thinking. You've got to get out into the streets, into the crowds, talk with people, and feel the rush and throb of real life-that's the stimulant for a story writer.

There is no well defined boundary line between honesty and dishonesty. The frontiers of one blend with the outside limits of the other, and he who attempts to tread this dangerous ground may be sometimes in the one domain and sometimes in the other.

All of us have to be prevaricators, hypocrites, and liars every day of our lives; otherwise the social structure would fall into pieces the first day. We must act in one another's presence just as we must wear clothes. It is for the best

The most notable thing about Time is that it is so purely relative. A large amount of reminiscence is, by common consent, conceded to the drowning man; and it is not past belief that one may review an entire courtship while removing one's gloves.

The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate.

We can't buy one minute of time with cash; if we could, rich people would live longer.

It ain't the roads we take; it's what's inside of us that makes us turn out the way we do.

If a person has lived through war, poverty and love, he has lived a full life

A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it.

Fortune is a prize to be won. Adventure is the road to it. Chance is what may lurk in the shadows at the roadside.

No friendship is an accident.

Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

I'll give you the whole secret to short story writing. Here it is. Rule 1: Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule 2.

Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence.

Each of us, when our day's work is done, must seek our ideal, whether it be love or pinochle or lobster à la Newburg, or the sweet silence of the musty bookshelves.

You can't appreciate home till you've left it, money till it's spent, your wife till she's joined a woman's club, nor Old Glory till you see it hanging on a broomstick on the shanty of a consul in a foreign town.

I've got some of my best yarns from park benches, lamp posts and newspaper stands.

There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.

Write what you like; there is no other rule.

To a woman nothing seems quite impossible to the powers of the man she worships.

Turn up the lights. I don't want to go home in the dark.

It was beautiful and simple, as truly great swindles are.

There are a few editor men with whom I am privileged to come in contact. It has not been long since it was their habit to come in contact with me. There is a difference.

I wanted to paint a picture some day that people would stand before and forget that it was made of paint. I wanted it to creep into them like a bar of music and mushroom there like a soft bullet.