Compose first, worry later.

Anyone can be gay - it's no accomplishment - but only I can be me.

If asked to list my ten favorite American fiction writers, Gail Godwin would be among them. In this, her latest . . . she evokes in a short book the long married life of two artists. Evenings at Five is a strong tale of love-after-death.

The Great don't innovate, they fertilize seeds planted by lackeys, they leave to others the inhaling of the flowers whose roots they've manured. A deceptive memory may be the key to their originality.

Art's the biggest vanity: the assumption that one's view of peace or fright or beauty is permanently communicable.

It's not evil that's ruining the earth, but mediocrity. The crime is not that Nero played while Rome burned, but that he played badly.

Why, after all, must everyone like music? That they are missing something is just the lover's opinion.