The West is color. Its colors are animal rather than vegetable, the colors of earth and sunlight and ripeness.

There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.

Only a fool would refuse to enter a fool's paradise when that's the only paradise he'll ever have a chance to enter.

Some people are always thirsting for water from other people's wells.

One can write out of love or hate. Hate tells one a great deal about a person. Love makes one become the person. Love, contrary to legend, is not half as blind, at least for writing purposes, as hate. Love can see the evil and not cease to be love. Hate cannot see the good and remain hate. The writer, writing out of hatred, will, thus, paint a far more partial picture than if he had written out of love.

The conversation of two people remembering, if the memory is enjoyable to both, rocks on like music or lovemaking. There is a rhythm and a predictability to it that each anticipates and relishes.

The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.