Our Father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. Virtues and graces and laziness and zest. Our Father who art in nature.

Three hours of writing require twenty hours of preparation. Luckily I have learned to dream about the work, which saves me some working time.

What some people find in religion a writer may find in his craft...a kind of breaking through to glory.

It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.

The words are meaningless except in terms of feeling. Does anyone act as the result of thought or does feeling stimulate action and sometimes thought implement it.

Father and son are natural enemies and each is happier and more secure in keeping it that way.

I have lost all sense of home, having moved about so much. It means to me now--only that place where the books are kept.