A life is measured by how it is lived for the sake of heaven.

Art is whether or not there is a scream in him wanting to get out in a special way.

A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.

I think the hardest part of writing is revising. And by that I mean the following: A novelist has to create the piece of marble and then chip away to find the figure in it.

I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.

A non-fiction writer pretty much has the shape of the figure in front of him or her and goes about refining it. A work of non-fiction is not as difficult to write as a work of fiction, but it's not as satisfying in the end.

A word is worth one coin, silence is worth two