I believe the alphabet is no longer considered an essential piece of equipment for traveling through life. In my day it was the keystone to knowledge. You learned the alphabet as you learned to count to ten, as you learned "Now I lay me" and the Lord's Prayer and your father's and mother's name and address and telephone number, all in case you were lost.

The first act of insight is throw away the labels.

The mystery lies in the use of language to express human life.

At the time of writing, I don't write for my friends or myself either; I write for it, for the pleasure of it.

Human life is fiction's only theme.

A thing is incredible, if ever, only after it is told -- returned to the world it came out of.

I was always my own teacher.