I can't write without a reader. It's precisely like a kiss - you can't do it alone.

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.

For these are not as they might seem to be, the ruins of our civilization, but are temporary encampment and outposts of the civilization that we - you and I - shall build.

When the beginnings of self destruction enter the heart, it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.

When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places.

How can a people who do not mean to understand death hope to understand love, and who will sound the alarm?

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.