Children were strangers you loved because you could love. If they gave back love when they were grown you were ahead of the game.

Prufrock had measured out his life with measuring spoons; Dubin, in books resurrecting the lives of others.

Nationality isn't soul.

Writers who can't invent stories often substitute style for narrative. They remind me of the painter who couldn't paint people, so he painted chairs.

Tomorrow the world is not the same as today, though God listens with the same ear.

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.

I fix what's broken - except in the heart.