It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth.

I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature.

How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past?

Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America.

He was born in Bercy on the outskirts of Paris and trained in France, and while he knows a little Poodle-English, he responds quickly only to commands in French. Otherwise he has to translate, and that slows him down.

I wish to God I knew as much about writing as I did when I was 19. I was absolutely certain about most things then. Also, I suspect, more accurate.

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.