I don't fret over lost time - I can always use the situations in a novel.

I look back into past history, the stored experiences or products of the imagination. I look no further forward than the evening.

There are many types of participation. One can observe so intensely that one becomes part of the action, but without being an active participant.

And really the purpose of art - for me, fiction - is to alert, to indicate to stop, to say: Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment which you might have had, or might still have.

I do like to live in other people's homes. I enjoy being a guest. I am an inexpensive guest. When one lives in another's home he can enter into the psychic kingdom of that person.

[Nabokov's] language is made visible . . . like a veil or transparent curtain. You cannot help seeing the curtain as you peek into the intimate rooms behind.

People say, "Well, you went on television, it enlarged your readership." It did not at all, not at all. I might as well tell you, I lost some readership, because the profound audience felt somehow bothered by my too easy manner.