Our tears fatten upon our memories of joy.

When I write, I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas.

School is where you go between when your parents can't take you and industry can't take you.

Hope bases vast premises on foolish accidents, and reads a word where in fact only a scribble exists.

If you look at the best-seller list, it is mostly thrillers. Very few books attempt to create an image of the life we live. I knew there were writers who wore tweed coats and lived in Connecticut and somehow made a living, and that's what I aimed to do. I've tried to write as well as I can with books that say something to any reader.

All those little congruences and arabesques you prepared with such delicate anticipatory pleasure are gobbled up as if by pigs at a pastry cart.

It is not enough for a story to flow. It has to kind of trickle and glint as it crosses over the stones of the bare facts.