To the happy all things come: happiness can even bring the dead back to life. It is our resentments, our dreariness, our hate and envy, unrecognized by us, which keeps us miserable. Yet these things are in our heads, not out of our hands; we own them. We can throw them out if we choose.

Marriage is what happens when one at least of the partners doesn't want the other to get away.

Novelists... fashioning nets to sustain and support the reader as he falls helplessly through the chaos of his own existence.

Another thing that seems quite helpful to the creative process is having babies. It does not detract at all from one's creativity. It reminds one that there is always more where that came from and there is never any shortage of ideas or of the ability to create. The process of being pregnant and then of having the baby and getting up in the night only puts one more in touch with this fecund part of one's self.

Prudence says one thing, desire says another, and I'd rather go with desire any time.

No one should be allowed to give back the gift of life, unless they are very old and full of tears, when the body outlives the spirit, when they should be allowed to join the others who've already gone.

I am not cynical. I am just old. I know what is going to happen next.