My brother and I were both good at science, and we were both good at English literature. Either one of us could have gone either way.

I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.

All fiction is about people, unless it's about rabbits pretending to be people. It's all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that's what we call 'the plot'.

I am rather saddened at the end of a book. I think most writers find this. It's like a friend departing on a voyage.

Once in a while, Jimmy would make up a word but he never once got caught out. ... He should have been pleased by his success with these verbal fabrications, but instead he was depressed by it. The memos telling him he'd done a good job meant nothing to him; all they proved was that no one was capable of appreciating how clever he had been. He came to understand why serial killers sent helpful clues to the police.

As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you're going to be a second-rate artist.

Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly. Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.