To most readers the word 'fiction' is an utter fraud. They are entirely convinced that each character has an exact counterpart in real life and that any small discrepancy with that counterpart is a simple error on the author's part. Consequently, they are totally at a loss if anything essential is altered. Make Abraham Lincoln a dentist, put the Gettysburg Address on his tongue, and nobody will recognize it.

A neurotic can perfectly well be a literary genius, but his greatest danger is always that he will not recognize when he is dull.

I think Shakespeare got drunk after he finished King Lear. That he had a ball writing it.

There is a charm, even for homely things, in perfect maintenance.

Frederick Buechner can find grace and redemption even in the shoddiest, phoniest aspects of a cultural wasteland. One reads Lion Country...with hope and delight.

We were not as rich as the Rockefellers or Mellons, but we were rich enough to know how rich they were.

Only little boys and old men sneer at love.