It's a little silly to finally learn how to write at this age. But I long ago realized I was secretly sincere.

Young children have no sense of wonder. They bewilder well, but few things surprise them. All of it is new to young children, after all, and equally gratuitous.

The mind itself is an art object. It is a Mondrian canvas onto whose homemade grids it fits its own preselected products. Our knowledge is contextual and only contextual. Ordering and invention coincide: we call their collaboration knowledge.

I think the dying pray at the last not "please," but "thank you," as a guest thanks his host at the door.

The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.

The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, & it smells good. Writing is mere writing, literature is mere. It appeals only to the subtlest senses—the imagination’s vision, & the imagination’s hearing—& the moral sense, & the intellect. This writing that you do, that so thrills you, that so rocks & exhilarates you, as if you were dancing next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else.

All my books started out as extravagant and ended up pure and plain.