I read the Odyssey because it was the story of a man who returned home after being absent for more than twenty years and was recognized only by his dog.

You are just in the middle of a struggle with words which are really very stubborn things, with a blank page, with the damn thing that you use to write with, a pen or a typewriter, and you forget all about the reader when you are doing that

What I do believe is that there is always a relationship between writing and reading, a constant interplay between the writer on the one hand and the reader on the other

Watching a movie from beginning to end is like reading, because even though what you see are images, they are telling you a story

American literature had always considered writing a very serious matter

Cigars must be smoked one at a time, peaceably, with all the leisure in the world. Cigarettes are of the instant, Cigars are for eternity.

I was never a true journalist, I was a movie critic.