I couldn't go on, too conscious all at once of my whispering, my eternal posturing, always transforming the world with words--changing nothing.

As a rule of thumb I say, if Socrates, Jesus and Tolstoy wouldn't do it, don't.

It would be, for me, mere pointless pleasure, an illusion of order for this one frail, foolish, flicker-flash in the long dull fall of eternity.

People will tell you that writing is too difficult, that it's impossible to get your work published, that you might as well hang yourself. Meanwhile, they'll keep writing and you'll have hanged yourself.

I couldn't go on, too conscious all at once of my whispering, my eternal posturing, always transforming the world with words--changing nothing.

We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.

Art, of course, is a way of thinking, a way of mining reality.