There are too many books I haven’t read, too many places I haven’t seen, too many memories I haven’t kept long enough.

Special-interest magazines are dangerous places for writers to start out in because the writing quickly falls into a routine and people are likely to find themselves artistically exhausted when they want to work on something of their own

My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever

In a novel, it's hard to keep track of everybody

Writing is like a contact sport, like football. Why do kids play football? They can get hurt on any play, can't they? Yet they can't wait until Saturday comes around so they can play on the high school team, or the college team, and get smashed around. Writing is like that. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it!

If you're young enough, any kind of writing you do for a short period of time is a marvelous apprenticeship.

My views naturally have mellowed. Most of the critics have been more or less nice to me