My job is to get people to write something truthful, something about truth and beauty - wherever they are - and to understand how literature is made. And then if they become great writers, that's great, and probably has nothing to do with me.

…I go through a story for lies. I might discover the lie of trying to show off. Sometimes they’re lies of character. Sometimes they are lies of writing the most beautiful sentence in the world that has nothing to do with the story.

If you want to do things, do things.

Sometimes before people know what they're saying, they already love the language.

There is a long time in me between knowing and telling.

My vocabulary is adequate for writing notes and keeping journals but absolutely useless for an active moral life.

Old age is not a good thing. It can be really hard, and those of us who have it a little easier should keep in mind that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are not as well off.