Though not all reading children grow up to be writers, I take it that most creative writers must in their day have been reading children.

Convention was our safeguard: could one have stronger?

[A writer] should try not to be too far, personally, below the level of his work.

Dialogue is the ideal means of showing what is between the characters. It crystallizes relationships. It should, ideally, be so effective as to make analysis or explanation of the relationships between the characters unnecessary.

Often when I write I am trying to make words do the work of line and color. I have the painter's sensitivity to light. Much of my writing is verbal painting.

When one is a child, the disposition of objects, tables and chairs and doors, seems part of the natural order: a house-move lets in chaos - as it does for a dog.

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