It is through the acceptance of a variety of aethetic and intellectual points of view that a culture is given breadth and density.

I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!

No more pronouncements on lousy verse. No more hidden competition. No more struggling not to be a square.

The Initial Mystery that attends any journey is: how did the traveler reach his starting point in the first place?

The fact, and the intuition or logic about the fact, are severe coordinates in fiction. In the short story they must cross with hair-line precision.

I have lost faith in universal panaceas - work is the one thing in which I really believe.

Stupidity always accompanies evil. Or evil, stupidity.