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.

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 hardest of all the arts to speak of is music, because music has no meaning to speak of

If you read reviews of concerts, the word 'creative' comes up all the time. However, performers playing music usually aren't creative. Critics might say they are, but they're just playing another persons work. They didn't create it.

Minor artists borrow, great ones steal.

Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.

The art of translation lies less in knowing the other language than in knowing your own.