I write a book at least three times-once to understand it, the second time to improve the prose, and a third to compel it to say what it still must say.

Some men are by nature explorers; my nature is to stay under the same moon and stars, and if the weather is wet, under the same roof. It's a strange world, why make it stranger?

If you ever forget you are a Jew a goy will remind you.

The past exudes legend: one can't make pure clay of time's mud. There is no life that can be recaptured wholly; as it was.Which is to say that all biography is ultimately fiction.

We can't all be friends and relatives as the world is; most of us have to be strangers.

If you don't hear His voice so let Him hear yours. When prayers go up blessings descend.

Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.