to leap is not only to leap, it is to hit the ground somewhere.

Imagination of my kind is most caught, most fired, most worked upon by the unfamiliar: I have thrivenon the changes and chances, the dislocations andcontrasts which have made up so much of my life.

But to be quite oneself one must first waste a little time.

Exhibitionism and a nervous wish for concealment, for anonymity, thus battle inside the buyer of any piece of clothing.

Characters are not created by writers. They pre-exist and have to be found.

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.

One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it.