The story must spring from an impression or perception pressing enough to have made the writer write. It should magnetize the imagination and give pleasure.

A Bowen, in the first place, made Bowen's Court. Since then, with a rather alarming sureness, Bowen's Court has made all the succeeding Bowens.

The short story is at an advantage over the novel, and can claim its nearer kinship to poetry, because it must be more concentrated, can be more visionary, and is not weighed down (as the novel is bound to be) by facts, explanation, or analysis. I do not mean to say that the short story is by any means exempt from the laws of narrative: it must observe them, but on its own terms.

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

nothing is more restful than conformity.

The craft of the novelist does lie first of all in story-telling.

People in love, in whom every sense is open, cannot beat off the influence of a place.