God, I'm such a lazy writer - I can't even think up new names.

There's no end to the inventiveness of critics, I tell you. Because they can't write fiction, they put their impulse into their analysis of work.

You just don't know writers. They'll use anything, anybody. They'll eat their young.

The strangest thing that human speech and human writing can do is create a metaphor. That is an amazing leap, is it not?

I was given talent, and if you are given it, it is your obligation to use it.

I haven't had a single moment of terror since they told me [I was dying]. My only regret is to die four pages too soon. If I can finish, then I'm quite happy to go.

A bad act done will fester and create in its own way. It's not only goodness that creates. Bad things create. They have their own yeast.