Completed, most lives were alike in stages of living-joys, celebrations, crises, illusions, losses, sorrows.

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.

The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime

You write by sitting down and writing. There's no particular time or place—you suit yourself, your nature. How one works, assuming he's disciplined, doesn't matter.

A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.

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.

Of course it would cost something, but he was an expert in cutting corners; and when there were no more corners left he would make circles rounder.