No one is shallow and vulgar forever; sooner or later the whole species likes to be profound.

The secret of literature, which conventional people don't guess, is that writers are forever looking for the surprising revelation - not for reinforcement of collective wisdom.

No one is shallow and vulgar forever; sooner or later the whole species likes to be profound.

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.

The principle of literature is devotion to the particulars of life.

For a short-story writer, a story is the combination of what the writer supposed the story would likely be about - plus what actually turned up in the course of writing.

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