It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.

It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.

What d'you suppose I care if I'm a gentleman or not? If I were a gentleman I shouldn't waste my time with a vulgar slut like you.

You can never know enough about your characters

He found that it was easy to make a heroic gesture, but hard to abide by its results.

A writer need not devour a whole sheep in order to know what mutton tastes like, but he must at least eat a chop. Unless he gets his facts right, his imagination will lead him into all kinds of nonsense, and the facts he is most likely to get right are the facts of his own experience.