To choose a writer for a friend is like palling around with your cardiologist, who might be musing as you talk to him that you are a sinking man. A writer's love for another writer is never quite free of malice. He may enjoy discussing your failures even more than you do. He probably sees you as tragic, like his characters - or unworthy of tragedy, which is worse.

To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.

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.

Either a writer doesn't want to talk about his work, or he talks about it more than you want.

Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader's teeth.

The tension between 'yes' and no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot,' makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

Two people making love, she once said, are like one drowned person resuscitating the other.