I publish a piece in order to kill it, so that I won't have to fool around with it any longer.

The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.

Blue is therefore most suitable as the color of interior life.

Sports, politics, and religion are the three passions of the badly educated.

it is discouraging to leave the past behind only to see it coming toward you like the thunderstorm which drenched you yesterday.

It’s not the word made flesh we want in writing, in poetry and fiction, but the flesh made word

For me, the short story is not a character sketch, a mouse trap, an epiphany, a slice of suburban life. It is the flowering of a symbol center. It is a poem grafted onto sturdier stock.

I am unlikely to trust a sentence that comes easily.

I write because I hate. A lot. Hard.

The expression to write something down suggests a descent of thought to the fingers whose movements immediately falsify it.

The speeding reader guts a book the way the skillful clean fish. The gills are gone, the tail, the scales, the fins; then the fillet slides away swifly as though fed to a seal.

Never be afraid of opportunities, always be on the lookout for adventures.

Where you are today is where you're from tomorrow.

It's only pain which leads us to achieve something special.

Stand behind my brain if you want to be rich.

People like you and I, though mortal of course like everyone else, do not grow old no matter how long we live.

In between effect and cause and just beyond the range of normal sight, this glittering joker was dancing in the dragon's jaws.

I am here at Lake Tahoe and there is magic at 6,000 feet.

We should be reminding ourselves that no matter how many problems may be facing us, the One Who is with us is greater than all those who oppose us.

You don't like presents or anything new, you don't even need a card. You prefer your appreciations to be something of helpfulness, for someone else's regard.

Going back is a nice way to give definition to each of the characters because they are so vastly different. I would never want them to get blended together.