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

Writing is an expression of the writer's own peculiar personality, could not help being so. Yet in reading great works one feels that the finished piece transcends the personal. All writers great and small must sometimes have felt that they have become part of what they wrote even more than it still remains a part of them.

Dialogue has to show not only something about the speaker that is its own revelation, but also maybe something about the speaker that he doesn't know but the other character does know.

There's still a strange moment with every book when I move from the position of writer to the position of reader and I suddenly see my words with the eyes of the cold public. It gives me a terrible sense of exposure, as if I'd gotten sunburned.

Passion is our ground, our island - do others exist?

No art ever came out of not risking your neck.

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.