A writer's life is so hazardous that anything he does is bad for him. Anything that happens to him is bad: failure's bad, success is bad; impoverishment is bad, money is very, very bad. Nothing good can happen... Except the act of writing.

A new reader shouldn't be able to find you in your work, though someone who's read more may begin to.

Stories distribute the suffering so that it can be borne.

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.

And so the ordinary unendurable torments we all experienced were indeed exceptional in the way they were absorbed in each heart.

Time seems to me a drift, a shifting of sand. And my mind is shifting with it. I am wearing away.

Facts are the images of history, just as images are the facts of fiction.