Defeat in this world is no disgrace and that is what they cannot understand. If you really fought well and fought for the right thing.

Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning.

I think I've only spent about ten percent of my energies on writing. The other ninety percent went to keeping my head above water.

I think joy is just as instructive as pain, and I like it better. I never meant to suffer any more than I could help; my nature was meant for happiness, a daylight art and living.

Physical infidelity is the signal, the notice given, that all fidelities are undermined.

God does not know whether a skin is black or white, He sees only souls.

I specialize in what the French call la petite histoire. I am interested in the individual thumbprint.