People in love, in whom every sense is open, cannot beat off the influence of a place.

life is a succession of readjustments.

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?

At the age of twelve I was finding the world too small: it appeared to me like a dull, trim back garden, in which only trivial games could be played.

The best that an individual can do is to concentrate on what he or she can do, in the course of a burning effort to do it better.

Some ideas, like dandelions in lawns, strike tenaciously: you may pull off the top but the root remains, drives down suckers and may even sprout again.

I do like Italian graves; they look so much more lived in.