Apprenticeship is one of the dearest roles of childhood, not just watching Dad or Mother, but being taught a hands-on trade.

The more original a short-story writer, the odder looking the assortment of things he or she puts together for a story.

It is very difficult to teach navigation theory to someone who clings to the shore.

I don't engage in self-censorship. But I do change everybody to have red hair in the last draft. ... If you give people red hair when in real life they haven't got red hair, I've noticed they don't recognize themselves, anyway.

Literature has low enough standards. But we can avoid writing the worst literature if we make ourselves ask ourselves, every two or three sentences we write, 'Is that what I really think?'

Apprenticeship is one of the dearest roles of childhood, not just watching Dad or Mother, but being taught a hands-on trade.

Unlike lions and dogs, we are a dissenting animal. We need to dissent in the same way that we need to travel, to make money, to keep a record of our time on earth and in dream, and to leave a permanent mark. Dissension is a drive, like those drives.