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.

To start writing about your life is, from one standpoint, to stop living it. You must avoid adventures today so as to make time for registering those of yesterday.

Greatness is not the effect of which inspiration is the cause. We are all inspired, but we are all not great.

Divine fires do not blaze each day but an artist functions in their afterglow, hoping for their recurrence.

To see itself through, music must have idea or magic. ... Music with neither dies young though rich.

Music is the sole art which evokes nostalgia for the future.

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.