Posterity makes the judgments. There are going to be a lot of surprises in store for everybody.

You must avoid giving hostages to fortune, like getting an expensive wife, an expensive house, and a style of living that never lets you aford the time to take the chance to write what you wish.

I'm not as hopeful as I was when I was young

My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever

A writer is a human being. He has to live with a sense of honor.

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

I look at everything. God gave me eyes and I look at women and men and subway excavations and moving pictures and the little flowers of the field. I casually inspect the universe.