I love my government not least for the extent to which it leaves me alone.

Musicians are very mysterious and wonderful people to me; I don't know how they do it.

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

Hemingway describes literary New York as a bottle full of tapeworms trying to feed on each other.

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self- solitude is the enemy of well- being.

A few places are especially conducive to inspiration - automobiles, church - public places. I plotted Couples almost entirely in church - little shivers and urgencies I would note down on the program, and carry down to the office Monday.

Photography is the first art wherein the tool does most of the work.