How we love to love things for other people; how we love to have other people love things through our eyes.

I'm not at all contemporary, not even modern, and the fact that I would be so quaintly attracted to that wrestling rule makes me, I suppose, seem all the more old-fashioned. I believe in rules of behavior, and I'm quite interested in stories about the consequences of breaking those rules.

It's my experience that very few writers, young or old, are really seeking advice when they give out their work to be read. They want support; they want someone to say, "Good job."

Ever since the Christmas of 1953, I have felt that the yuletide is a special hell for those families who have suffered any loss or who must admit to any imperfection; the so-called spirit of giving can be as greedy as receiving-Christmas is our time to be aware of what we lack, of who's not home.

This is what self-centered religion does to us: it allows us to use it to further our own ends.

He wished he could arrange a maiming as a kind of moral lesson

when however small a measure of jealousy is mixed with misunderstanding, there is always going to be trouble.