Swoopers write a story quickly, higgledy-piggledy, crinkum-crankum, any which way. Then they go over it again painstakingly, fixing everything that is just plain awful or doesn’t work. Bashers go one sentence at a time, getting it exactly right before they go on to the next one. When they’re done they’re done.

I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival.

A lot of people were opposed to it. A lot of people were for it. I myself think about it as little as possible.

How important my books are or anybody's books are, I don't know. I don't think they are terribly important I think that they make people contented during the period they are reading them and this is worth something is to take care of somebody for a couple of hours.

Son,' my father said to me, 'someday this will all be yours.

It's the emptiest and yet the fullest of all human messages: 'Good-bye.

Rabo Karabekian: I'm in the middle of a sentence. Circe Berman: Who isn't?.