Novels are routinely denigrated when characters are not found to be likable. Is Raskolnikov likable? Is King Lear? The plethora of such naive readers testifies to a failure of imagination - the capacity to see into unfamiliar lives, motives, feelings - and this failure must, at least in part, be the failure of the teaching of literature in the schools.

The power of language, it seems to me, is the only kind of power a writer is entitled to.

It's true that the young who now flock to script writing, or producing and directing, to fulfill the demands of these new devices would, in an earlier period, have been submitting to magazines and working on their first novels. But even in the midst of all these "digital products," the wonder of it is that there are still so many young writers who continue to believe in the venerable print novel as the corridor to fame and fortune.

It is useless either to hate or to love truth - but it should be noticed.

If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.

In saying what is obvious, never choose cunning. Yelling works better.

very bright teeth as big and orderly as piano keys.