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.

Some of the words and symbols and images from childhood will continually be part and parcel of my personality.

The thing about imagination is that by the very act of putting it down, there must be some truth in one's own imagination.

I believe everybody is responsible for what they do themselves.

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.

Ideals jump across the hierarchies of the printed word.

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.