As a child. I grew up on a small farm, so I did a lot of drawings of animals, chickens and people. At the bottom of every page, I'd put a strange scribble. I was emulating adult handwriting, though I didn't actually know how to write.

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

Sometimes I stumble upon a wonderfully irresistible to me voice, unexpectedly.

Perhaps the inevitable tragedy of our complex civilization is that we must be specialists in our fields - and our fields have become increasingly difficult, so that communication is nearly impossible.

He was ugly, himself. Weird-ugly. But ugliness in a man doesn't matter, much. Ugliness in a woman is her life.

I am not conscious of working especially hard, or of 'working' at all. Writing and teaching have always been, for me, so richly rewarding that I don't think of them as work in the usual sense of the word.

A good, sympathetic review is always a wonderful surprise.