Fantasy is toxic: the private cruelty and the world war both have their start in the heated brain.

Darling, I don't want you; I've got no place for you; I only want what you give. I don't want the whole of anyone.... What you want is the whole of me-isn't it, isn't it?-and the whole of me isn't there for anybody. In that full sense you want me I don't exist.

The most striking fault in work by young or beginning novelists, submitted for criticism, is irrelevance--due either to infatuation or indecision. To direct such an author's attention to the imperative of relevance is certainly the most useful--and possibly the only--help that can be given.

we can surmount the anger we feel. To find oneself like a young tree inside a tomb is to discover the power to crack the tomb and grow up to any height.

Spoilt pleasure is a sad, unseemly thing; you can only bury it.

What I have found is, anything one keeps hidden should now and then be hidden somewhere else.

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