... artists were intended to be an ornament to society. As a society in themselves they are unthinkable.

Every love has a poetic relevance of its own; each love brings to light only what to it is relevant. Outside lies the junk-yard of what does not matter.

Good-byes breed a sort of distaste for whomever you say good-bye to; this hurts, you feel, this must not happen again.

I became, and remain, my characters' close and intent watcher: their director, never. Their creator I cannot feel that I was, or am.

The short story is at an advantage over the novel, and can claim its nearer kinship to poetry, because it must be more concentrated, can be more visionary, and is not weighed down (as the novel is bound to be) by facts, explanation, or analysis. I do not mean to say that the short story is by any means exempt from the laws of narrative: it must observe them, but on its own terms.

Who is ever adequate? We all create situations each other can't live up to, then break our hearts at them because they don't.

Two things are terrible in childhood: helplessness (being in other people's power) and apprehension - the apprehension that something is being concealed from us because it is too bad to be told.