My old friend, water, my good companion, my beloved mother and father: I am its most natural offspring.

Writers are entirely egocentric. To them, few things in their lives have meaning or importance unless they give promise of serving some creative purpose.

A hand up is worthier than one's own fist grasping a higher rung of the ladder.

What others regard as retreat from them or rejection of them is not those things at all but instead a breeding ground for greater friendship, a culture for deeper involvement, eventually, with them.

We were determined by public opinions of us. Would we think we existed without outside confirmation? And how long would we live apart from others before we began to doubt our existence?

Praise requires constant renewal and expansion.

The reason that extended solitude seemed so hard to endure was not that we missed others but that we began to wonder if we ourselves were present, because for so long our existence depended upon assurances from them.