A man had to learn, it was his nature.

... it's possible to let love fly by like a cloud in a windy sky if one is too timid, or perhaps unable to believe he is entitled to good fortune.

First drafts are for learning what your novel or story is about. Revision is working with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to re-form it.... The first draft of a book is the most uncertain-where you need guts, the ability to accept the imperfect until it is better.

The whole history of baseball has the quality of mythology.

(Clothes) cannot change a man's nature. He's either kind or he isn't, with or without clothes.

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

If the stories come, you get them written, you're on the right track. Eventually everyone learns his or her own best way. The real mystery to crack is you.