Writing is a good example of self-abandonment. I never completely forget myself except when I am writing and I am never more completely myself than when I am writing.

Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violences which precede and follow them.

Remember that you don't write a story because you have an idea but because you have a believable character.

He had the feeling that everything he saw was a broken-off piece of some giant blank thing that he had forgotten had happened to him.

Everything that gave her pleasure was small and depressed him.

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

When she told a story, she rolled her eyes and waved her head and was very dramatic.