The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

No art is sunk in the self, but rather, in art the self becomes self-forgetful in order to meet the demands of the thing seen and the thing being made.

I write to discover what I know.

I was a very ancient twelve; my views at that age would have done credit to a Civil War veteran. I am much younger now than I was at twelve or anyway, less burdened. The weight of the centuries lies on children, I'm sure of it.

People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.

A story has to have muscle as well as meaning, and the meaning has to be in the muscle.

[To] know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility . . .