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

The novelist works neither to correct nor to condone, not at all to comfort, but to make what's told alive.

For the night was not impartial. No, the night loved some more than others, served some more than others.

I read library books as fast as I could go, rushing them home in the basket of my bicycle. From the minute I reached our house, I started to read. Every book I seized on, from “Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Camp Rest-a-While” to “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” stood for the devouring wish to read being instantly granted. I knew this was bliss, knew it at the time. Taste isn’t nearly so important; it comes in its own time.

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

Every story teaches me how to write it. Unfortunately, it doesn't teach me how to write the next one.

Never think you've seen the last of anything.