1. The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

2. Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.

3. If there is no possibility for change in a character, we have no interest in him.

4. Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you.

5. The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where the human perception begins. He appeals through the senses, and you cannot appeal through the senses with abstractions.

6. The fiction writer has to engage in a continual examination of conscience. He has to be aware of the freak in himself.

7. The writer is only free when he can tell the reader to go jump in the lake. You want, of course, to get what you have to show across to him, but whether he likes it or not is no concern of the writer.

8. Something goes on that makes it easier when it does come well. And the fact is if you don't sit there every day, the day it would come well, you won't be sitting there.

9. The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.

10. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.