Quotes from James Salter

The notion that anything can be invented wholly and that these invented things are classified as 'fiction' and that other writing, presumably not made up, is called 'nonfiction' strikes me as a very arbitrary separation of things.

I've made an effort to nurture the feminine in myself. I don't mean overtly, but in terms of response to things.

Life passes into pages if it passes into anything.

My first book was published without any editorial advice. Nobody said, 'You might do this or that,' or 'Why don't we see more of this.' I merely took the book and published it.

There is no complete life. There are only fragments. We are born to have nothing, to have it pour through our hands. And yet, this pouring, this flood of encounters, struggles, dreams...

In a certain sense, a writer is an exile, an outsider, always reporting on things, and it is part of his life to keep on the move. Travel is natural.

I think you can be taught to write. You can't be taught to be a good writer. For that, you have to bring something to it, yourself, something that can't be given to you.

There is no real beauty without some slight imperfection.

You can't be admitted to the ranks of writers of importance unless you have sales.

I always knew writing a novel was a great thing.

I've always said that I felt women are more heroic.

I'm a 'frotteur,' someone who likes to rub words in his hand, to turn them around and feel them, to wonder if that really is the best word possible. Does that word in this sentence have any electric potential? Does it do anything? Too much electricity will make your reader's hair frizzy. There's a question of pacing.

'The Paris Review' was always the pinnacle: it was the place to be published. You were thrilled if you were published in 'The Paris Review,' and George Plimpton himself was practically mythical. He was a legendary figure.

It's tremendous: this world, this life. Take it while you have it.

You are perfectly entitled to invent your life and to claim that it's true.

ONE OF THE LAST GREAT REALIZATIONS is that life will not be what you dreamed.

Life is weather. Life is meals.

As I look back, I see that life is like a game of solitaire and every once in a while there is a move.

The writing workshops and programs that are everywhere have encouraged writing. And if that produces more writing, it's also producing more readers of an elevated level. So all in all, a good thing.

Love must wait; it must break one's bones.

The deepest instinct is to want to do something enduring, something worthwhile, and to be engaged by that, whether one achieves it or not.

If you write enough, you begin to learn to do things. But in a way, you do start from zero each time.

A name, of course is like a piece of clothing, isn't it? It gives you an impression right away.

It was not until I began to write a book called 'Light Years' that an editor really stepped in. The editor was Joe Fox at Random House, and he wound up editing a subsequent book.