Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil - not the strength to choose between the two.

I write to make sense of my life." -John Cheever, quoted in _Cheever - A Life_ (2009) by Blake Bailey

Falsehood is a critical element in fiction. Part of the thrill of being told a story is the chance of being hoodwinked. . .The telling of lies is a sort of sleight of hand that displays our deepest feelings about life.

The organizations of men, like men themselves, seem subject to deafness, near-sightedness, lameness, and involuntary cruelty. We seem tragically unable to help one another, to understand one another.

Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil - not the strength to choose between the two.

I've been homesick for countries I've never been, and longed to be where I couldn't be.

Sometimes the easiest-seeming stories to a reader are the hardest kind to write.