Fiction does not invent out of a vacuum, but it invents; and what it invents is, first, the fabric and cadence of language, and then a slant of idea that sails out of these as a fin lifts from the sea.

It isn't the instrument that influences High-Minded or Low-Minded; it's the quality of Mind itself.

To imagine the unimaginable is the highest use of the imagination

The imagination has resources and intimations we don't even know about.

a. Critics: people who make monuments out of books. b. Biographers: people who make books out of monuments. c. Poets: people who raze monuments. d. Publishers: people who sell rubble. e. Readers: people who buy it.

When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren't grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event, we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.

One reason writers write is out of revenge.