The difference between Socrates and Jesus is that no one had ever been put to death in Socrates' name. And that is because Socrates' ideas were never made law. Law, in whatever name, protects privilege.

I have committed many sins in my life. This precise sin-the sin against poets-is without absolution.

Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing - none of that is writing. Writing is writing. Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

It may be that the most avid readers of new fiction in America today are film producers, an indication of the trouble were in.

If you feel a bump on page one hundred, it may be you went off on page fifty.

We dress them [children] in the presumptions of the world. They are the bright small face of hope. They are the last belief we have, the belief in making them believe.

I did have a feeling then that the culture of factuality was so dominating that storytelling had lost all its authority.