I'm not a movie person. They're collaborations of the worst kind. You must compromise yourself to many interests that are venal and crass and do not have your best interests at heart.

It doesn't really matter who said it - it's so obviously true. Before you can write anything, you have to notice something.

Self-hatred is worse than loneliness.

I always thought that you could do worse than find yourself dying in the company of a devoted former student.

There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep.

It's a no-win argument - that business of what we're born with and what our environment does to us. And it's a boring argument, because it simplifies the mysteries that attend both our birth and our growth.

I don't begin a novel until I have written, not just the last sentence, but usually, as a result thereof, many of the surrounding final paragraphs, so that in addition to knowing what happens, I know what the voice is.