I do know that I need solitude, not only to write but to nourish myself (being, like most writers, an introvert) so that I do keep trying to write.

We are trying to communicate that which lies in our deepest heart, which has no words, which can only be hinted at through the means of a story. And somehow, miraculously, a story that comes from deep in my heart calls from a reader that which is deepest in his or her heart, and together from our secret hidden selves we create a story that neither of us could have told alone.

I have been mocked by beauty, too. But it was the beauty which cost me nothing that in the end turned upon me.

You have to believe it and you hate it. I don't have to and I think it's beautiful.

What I really want to do is to write a hilarious farce.

I realize, of course, that I wasn't born knowing how to read. I just can't imagine a time when I didn't know how.

Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits.