I was made to feel I could do things. If you get this feeling early and can hold it until you're 15, you tend to never lose it.

Men emerge pale from the little printing plant at four sharp, ghosts for an instant, blinking, until the outdoor light overcomes the look of constant indoor light clinging to them.

The literary scene is a kind of Medusa’s raft, small and sinking, and one’s instinct when a newcomer tries to clamber aboard is to step on his fingers.

Sun and moon, sun and moon, time goes.

An American in London...cannot but be impressed and charmed by the city. The momumentality of Washington, the thriving business of New York, the antique intimacy of Boston, plus a certain spacious and open feeling reminiscent of Denver and San Francisco-all these he finds combined for his pleasure.

How can the planet keep turning and turning and not get so bored it explodes?

So, you know, I think any life has in it enough material, enough points of departure, to fuel a writer's career and that we shouldn't worry about what we're not but to try to focus on what we are and what we do know.