People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to the other, more instantly negotiable virtues.... character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source from which self-respect springs.

For however dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable I.

A single person is missing for you, and the whole world is empty.

To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed.

You have to make sure you have the characters you want. That's really the most complicated part.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write.