What art ought to do is tell stories which are moment-by-moment wonderful, which are true to human experience, and which in no way explain human experience.

Fiction does not spring into the world fully grown, like Athena. It is the process of writing and rewriting that makes a fiction original, if not profound.

Our noblest hopes grow teeth and pursue us like tigers.

I know everything, you see,' the old voice wheedled. 'The beginning, the present, the end. Everything. You now, you see the past and the present, like other low creatures: no higher faculties than memory and perception. But dragons, my boy, have a whole different kind of mind.' He stretched his mouth in a kind of smile, no trace of pleasure in it. 'We are from the mountaintop: all time, all space. We see in one instant the passionate vision and the blowout.

Poor Grendel's had an accident. So may you all.

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.

The citizen can bring our political and governmental institutions back to life, make them responsive and accountable, and keep them honest. No one else can.