I've been reading reviews of my stories for twenty-five years, and can't remember a single useful point in any of them, or the slightest good advice. The only reviewer who ever made an impression on me was Skabichevsky, who prophesied that I would die drunk in the bottom of a ditch.

I am dying. I haven't drunk champagne for a long time.

It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life.

An artist observes, selects, guesses, and synthesizes.

[Six principles that make for a good story:] 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality: flee the stereotype; 6. compassion.

Faith is a capacity of the spirit. It is like talent: you have to be born with it

You only have to start a job of work to realize how few decent, honest folk there are about.