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.

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.

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

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.

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

If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it's great, it should be read at least three times.

The epic implications of being human end in more than this: We start our lives as if they were momentous stories, with a beginning, a middle and an appropriate end, only to find that they are mostly middles.