... every little boy thinks he invented sin.

I think of my life as a kind of music, not always good music but still having form and melody.

People don't want advice...only corroboration.

A town is a thing like a colonial animal. A town has a nervous system and a head and shoulders and feet. A town is a thing separate from all other towns alike. And a town has a whole emotion. How news travels through a town is a mystery not easily to be solved. News seems to move faster than small boys can scramble and dart to tell it, faster than women can call it over the fences.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of a writer.

People are felt rather than seen after the first few moments.