That so many writers have been prepared to accept a kind of martyrdom is the best tribute that flesh can pay to the living spirit of man as expressed in his literature. One cannot doubt that the martyrdom will continue to be gladly embraced. To some of us, the wresting of beauty out of language is the only thing in the world that matters.

Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate.

I wrote much because I was paid little. I had no great desire to leave a literary name behind me.

A man can write one book that can be great, but this doesn't make him a great writer-just the writer of a great book. . . I think a writer has to extend very widely, as well as plunge very deep, to be a great novelist.

Immortality makes sense only when the individual soul can be thought of as merging into a great collective mush of sainthood. If we take anything with us into the next world, it is not what survives in the memories of our relicts.

As we grow older, the memories of early life brighten, those of maturity and senescence grow dim and confused.

...We're a government that believes in everybody having the illusion of free will.