Style is the thing that's always a bit phony, and at the same time you cannot write without style.

The wish to lead out one's lover must be a tribal feeling; the wish to be seen as loved is part of one's self-respect.

Dialogue should convey a sense of spontaneity but eliminate the repetitiveness of real talk.

one should discuss one's difficulties only when they are over.

The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.

After inside upheavals, it is important to fix on imperturbable things. Their imperturbableness, their air that nothing has happened renews our guarantee.

The most striking fault in work by young or beginning novelists, submitted for criticism, is irrelevance--due either to infatuation or indecision. To direct such an author's attention to the imperative of relevance is certainly the most useful--and possibly the only--help that can be given.