A page of good prose remains invincible.

Good writers are often excellent at a hundred other things, but writing promises a greater latitude for the ego.

Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos (no less) and we can accomplish this only by the most vigilant exercise of choice, but in a world that changes more swiftly that we can perceive there is always the danger that our powers of selection will be mistaken and that the vision we serve will come to nothing.

Avoid kneeling in unheated stone churches. Ecclesiastical dampness causes prematurely grey hair.

For lovers, touch is metamorphosis. All the parts of their bodies seem to change, and they seem to become something different and better.

Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house. Courage tastes of blood. Stand up straight. Admire the world. Relish the love of a gentle woman.

The poet or storyteller who feels that he is competing with a superb double play in the World Series is a lost man. One would not want as a reader a man who did not appreciate the finesse of a double play.