The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.

You are writing for your contemporaries - not for Posterity. If you are lucky, your contemporaries will become Posterity.

Of the widow's countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband's death the widow should think I kept myself alive.

It would be difficult for a writer of realism to avoid suggesting a political/moral perspective in his or her fiction. "Politics" per se is absent from my writing but there is usually a moral (if ironic) compass.

The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to "overcome" doubt.

while there are 'women writers' there are not, and have never been, 'men writers.' This is an empty category, a class without specimens; for the noun 'writer' - the very verb 'writing' - always implies masculinity.

It's not hard to write poorly. But to write something good, it has to be revised.