I do not gather things, I prefer to rent them rather than to possess them.

I collect human relationships very much the way others collect fine art.

Can the imagination, any more than the boy, be held prisoner ?" - from the foreword to the 1976 edition of "The Painted Bird

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

I suppress in my prose any language which calls attention to itself.

Here was one place where I could find out who I was and what I was going to become. And that was the public library.

The popular culture says . . . Do what you do, your life is predestined, like the installment plan on your house. There's not much you can do about it. Make your payments, live it, get sick, die, don't make any trouble. It is the Master Charge of destiny. Try to get your high credit rating.