Strange: how when a light is extinguished, it's immediately as if it has never been. Darkness fills in again, complete.

Writing is a consequence of having been 'haunted' by material. Why this is, no one knows.

...[I am] utterly entranced, at times, with the mere fact that there are other people, and that they experience themselves as the primary center of consciousness just as I do. That fact alone...Well, that fact alone is staggering.

Like all virtuous people he imagines he must speak the truth.

The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence.

Because the meaning of a story does not lie on its surface, visible and self-defining, does not mean that meaning does not exist. Indeed, the ambiguity of meaning, its inner private quality, may well be part of the writer's vision.

On the elusive gift of blending austerity of craft with elasticity of allure.