There are, of course, people who didn't create the trouble they're in, but lots of them do.

You can't say, "I'm too busy writing to be political." You are one person.

It's easier to love a woman when you can't understand a word she's saying.

To say it was a beautiful day would not begin to explain it. It was that day when the end of summer intersects perfectly with the start of fall .... [p.218 ff.]

Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.

It was too much work to remember things you might not have again, and so one by one they opened up their hands and let them go.

The tricky thing about being a writer, or about being any kind of artist, is that in addition to making art you also have to make a living.