I was initially planning to write about grief in terms of Eurydice and the myth thereof. By that point the overall metaphor of height and depth and flat and falling and rising was coming into being in my mind.

The spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern...American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity.

I'm one of those writers who started off writing novels and came to writing short stories later, partly because I didn't have the right ideas, partly because I think that short stories are more difficult. I think learning to write short stories also made me attracted toward a paring down of the novel form.

To own a certain book - and to choose it without help - is to define yourself.

The ways in which a book, once read, stays (and changes) in the reader's mind are unpredictable.

In an oppressive society the truth-telling nature of literature is of a different order, and sometimes valued more highly than other elements in a work of art.

What happiness is there in just the memory of happiness?