Cleverness is a quality a man likes to have in his wife as long as she is some distance away from him. Up close, he'll take kindness any day of the week, if there's nothing more alluring to be had.

Vanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I'm not ready for that yet.

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.

It's probably a form of childish curiosity that keeps me going as a fiction writer. I ... want to open everybody's bureau drawers and see what they keep in there. I'm nosy.

The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.

I'm not senile," I snapped. "If I burn the house down it will be on purpose.

I became a poet at the age of sixteen. I did not intend to do it. It was not my fault.