People give one another things that can't be gift wrapped.

As writers, we are exploring the mystery, the mystery of existence.

Can you imagine a writer in England influencing? Absolutely not. And in France? It used to be, but no more-absolutely not. France used to, at least, have writers as diplomats, but not any more.

In various and different circumstances certain objects and individuals are going to turn out to be vital. The wager of survival cannot, by its nature, reveal which, in advance of events.

Writers themselves don't analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope.

Success sometimes may be defined as a disaster put on hold. Qualified. Has to be.

Perhaps the best way to write is to do so as if one were already dead, afraid of no one's reactions, answerable to no one's views.