The writing of a novel is taking life as it already exists, not to report it but to make an object, toward the end that the finished work might contain this life inside it and offer it to the reader. The essence will not be, of course, the same thing as the raw material; it is not even of the same family of things. The novel is something that never was before and will not be again.

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

I believe in it, and I trust it too and treasure it above everything, the personal, the personal, the personal! I put my faith in it not only as the source, the ground of meaning in art, in life, but as the meaning itself.

Each story tells me how to write it, but not the one afterwards.

Ah, I'm a woman that's been clear around the world in my rocking chair, and I tell you we all get surprises now and then.

A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.

The first thing we see about a short story is its mystery. And in the best short stories, we return at the last to see mystery again