Two things remain irretrievable: time and a first impression.

The art of fiction is freedom of will for your characters.

The ordinary is the divine.

What I felt then I feel now: the inexorable, unchanging interior hum of doubt and hope.

I wanted to use what I was, to be what I was born to be - not to have a 'career', but to be that straightforward obvious unmistakable animal, a writer.

We have had, alas, and still have, the doubtful habit of reverence. Above all, we respect things as they are.

There's a paradox in rereading. You read the first time for rediscovery: an encounter with the confirming emotions. But you reread for discovery: you go to the known to figure out the workings of the unknown, the why of the familiar how.