... any fictionis bound to be transposed autobiography.

[My early stories] are the work of a living writer whom I know in a sense, but can never meet.

Habit is not mere subjugation, it is a tender tie; when one remembers habit it seems to have been happiness.

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?

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

Some ideas, like dandelions in lawns, strike tenaciously: you may pull off the top but the root remains, drives down suckers and may even sprout again.

... love dreads being isolated, being left to speak in a void -- at the beginning it would often rather listen than speak.