There's something about a parenthesis in fiction that puts one off, saying, "It's me, moi, jumping in now."

Our salvation never comes in the form we would have chosen.

Sometimes, in that darkness, there is a single act of love, some selfless gesture, an aspiration, and we see that it's not been all waste, all hopeless, and we can ... well ... go on.

Uninvited criticism is insult.

A short story is a writer's way of thinking through experience... Journalism aims at accuracy, but fiction's aim is truth. The writer distorts reality in the interest of a larger truth.

Obscenities are too often used for shock value, as a kind of shorthand for real expression of emotion. You've got to scale down your monstrosities. A scream is not a discovery.

Let good people sin. Give virtue to rotters.

Nothing on earth in fiction is less interesting than characters under the influence of alcohol.

Plot does not simply move with time, but spreads out conceptually in metaphorical space.

Using language like jungle growth isn't the solution to telling a story.

What a strange thing it is to recognize a sound like the shriek of a wounded animal, when you've never heard the shriek of a wounded animal.

It was, she had to admit, some kind of wonderful to be kissed so deliciously by the only mand who had dared play with her cat with the intention of winning.

Bake a lie into proven facts and you will be surprised at how many fall for it.

I don't need that much to live - we don't need that much to have a wonderful life. I learned that from animals.

My faith in the people governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in the people governed is, on the whole, illimitable.

No, it's not a 'corpse thing.' I feel I lack the emotional capacity to deal with those in mourning.

Thank God when he oppresses you, and again when he releases you.

Homeopathy is a progressive and aggressive step in medicine.

To stand up on the stage is to say to many people: Look at me. How can you do that without speaking the only truth you know? There is no such thing as an uncommitted actor.

A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself.

Outside is the world; it's there. Pop Art looks out into the world.