You could omit anything if you knew that the omitted part would strengthen the short story and make people feel something more than they understood

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.

It is one thing to be in the proximity of death, to know more or less what she is, and it is quite another thing to seek her.

There is no lonelier man in death, except the suicide, than that man who has lived many years with a good wife and then outlived her. If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.

Life breaks all of us but some of us get stronger in the broken places.

Fish," he said softly, aloud, "I'll stay with you until I am dead.

Having books published is very destructive to writing. It is even worse than making love too much. Because when you make love too much at least you get a damned clarte that is like no other light. A very clear and hollow light.