Autumn arrives in early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day.

Temperamentally, the writer exists on happenings, on contacts, conflicts, action and reaction, speed, pressure, tension. Were he acontemplative purely, he would not write.

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.

... in nine out of ten cases the original wish to write is the wish to make oneself felt[ellipsis in source] the non-essential writer never gets past that wish.

First love, with its frantic haughty imagination, swings its object clear of the everyday, over the rut of living, making him all looks, silences, gestures, attitudes, a burning phrase with no context.

Curiosity in Rome is a form of courtesy.

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?