A question is a trap and an answer is your foot in it.

In writing, habit seems to be a much stronger force than either willpower or inspiration.

The direction of a big act will warp history, but probably all acts do the same in their degree, down to a stone stepped over in the path or the breath caught at sight of a pretty girl or a fingernail nicked in the garden soil.

...to find where you are going, you must know where you are.

Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of a human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed

Don't you dare take the lazy way. It's too easy to excuse yourself because of your ancestry. Don't let me catch you doing it! Now -- look close at me so you will remember. Whatever you do, it will be you who do.

The trash and litter of nature disappears into the ground with the passing of each year, but man's litter has more permanence.