every short story is an experiment - what one must ask is not only, did it come off, but was it, as an experiment, worth making?

Disappointment tears the bearable film off life.

Childish fantasy, like the sheath over the bud, not only protects but curbs the terrible budding spirit, protects not only innocence from the world, but the world from the power of innocence.

Dialogue is the ideal means of showing what is between the characters. It crystallizes relationships. It should, ideally, be so effective as to make analysis or explanation of the relationships between the characters unnecessary.

Often when I write I am trying to make words do the work of line and color. I have the painter's sensitivity to light. Much of my writing is verbal painting.

life is a succession of readjustments.

Proust has pointed out that the predisposition to love creates its own objects; is this not also true of fear?