I still don't think I have a vocation - and writing is a way of avoiding one.

I've decided I'm going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty is just too good to pass up.

I have always said that archival images are images without imagination. They petrify thought and kill any power of evocation.

Polite Conversation Why, everyone one as they like; as the good woman said when she kissed her cow.

I don't think you get successful to brag and throw what you have in the world's face. That's all private.

You know, I always think of myself as sort of ready for every criticism.

When you are honest and open with young people, they let you in.

I live by Edith Whartons rule to get rid of anything neither useful nor beautiful. So I put the TV out on the street.

No man divulges his revenue, or at least which way it comes in: but every one publishes his acquisitions.

Normally writers do not talk much,because they are saving their conversations for the readers of their book- those invisible listeners with whom we wish to strike a sympathetic chord.

I forget that he is another person; instead it feels like he is another part of me, just as essential as a heart or an eye or an arm.