We gather our arms full of guilt as though it were precious stuff. It must be that we want it that way.

It is customary for the recipient of this award to offer personal or scholarly comment on the nature and the direction of literature. At this particular time, however, I think it would be well to consider the high duties and the responsibilities of the makers of literature.

I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer -- and what trees and seasons smelled like -- how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich.

I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.

Intentions, good or bad, are not enough. There's luck or fate or something else that takes over.

In business and in politics a man must carve and maul his way through men to get to be King of the Mountain. Once there, he can be great and kind-but he must get there first.

And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.