A narrative is like a room on whose walls a number of false doors have been painted; while within the narrative, we have many apparent choices of exit, but when the author leads us to one particular door, we know it is the right one because it opens.

Figure out where you're going before you go there: he was told that a long time ago.

The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.

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.

Time is our element, not a mistaken invader.

There is always a chance of failure, of producing something totally unnecessary. But I guess that chance of failure is what makes tightrope walking, race-car driving.

We take our bearings, daily, from others. To be sane is, to a great extent, to be sociable.