My own feeling is that the only possible reason for engaging in the hard labor of writing a novel, is that one is bothered by something one needs to understand, and can come to understand only through the characters in the imagined situation.

Old age is not an illness, it is a timeless ascent. As power diminishes, we grow toward the light.

Do not deprive me of my age. I have earned it.

Lunches are just not good. They take the heart out of the day and the spaciousness from the morning's work.

Failure would only be if you had somewhere stopped growing. As far as I can see the whole duty of the artist is to keep on growing.

No partner in a love relationship... should feel that he has to give up an essential part of himself to make it viable.

Self-respect is nothing to hide behind. When you need it most it isn't there.