I think that everything you do helps you to write if youre a writer. Adversity and success both contribute largely to making you what you are. If you dont experience either one of those, youre being deprived of something. – Shelby Foote
I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value, but to have someone else to point out your mistakes is a shortcut of the process. – Shelby Foote
Im crazy about Grant: his character, his nature, his science in fighting and everything else. But I dont like the idea that he never accepted the blame for anything, always found someone else to blame for any mistake that was ever made, including blaming Prentiss for Shiloh. – Shelby Foote
And Im a slow writer: five, six hundred words is a good day. Thats the reason it took me 20 years to write those million and a half words of the Civil War. – Shelby Foote