Ruefulness is one of the classical tones of American fiction. It fosters a native, deglamorized form of anxiety.

There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience.

The more I like a book, the more reluctant I am to turn the page. Lovers, even book lovers, tend to cling. No one-night stands or "reads" for them.

In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives.

For years they have been using the role of 'sex object' as a cover while they spied out the land.

There is something about seeing real people on a stage that makes a bad play more intimately, more personally offensive than any other art form.

It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.