as the years go on a sense of deep patience comes over one; one seems to know the virtue of ripeness, and the danger of rushing events.

What marks a writer is this: until she - or he, of course - writes down whatever happened, turns it into a story, it hasn't really happened, it hasn't shape, form, reality.

Why do long marriages occasionally endow their inhabitants with a rare kind of equilibrium otherwise almost unknown in human relations? My guess is that the value of the moment has at last overshadowed the long history of resentments, betrayals, and boredom.

. . . a relationship has a momentum, it must change and develop, and will tend to move toward the point of greatest commitment.

Professors of literature collect books the way a ship collects barnacles, without seeming effort.

Is there any vanity greater than the vanity of those who believe themselves without it?

as the years go on a sense of deep patience comes over one; one seems to know the virtue of ripeness, and the danger of rushing events.