I was the goldfish that leapt out of the bowl.

My father brought me a box of books once when I was about three and a half or four. I remember the carton they were in and the covers with illustrations by Newell C. Wyeth.

The language of labels is like paper money, issued irresponsibly, with nothing of intrinsic value behind it, that is, with no effort of the intelligence to see, to really apprehend.

In my early twenties, that's when I really began to write. Before that, I was too busy working, keeping myself going.

My first job was working in a dress shop in Los Angeles in 1940, for $7 a week.

To be human is to be in a story.

I taught writing classes at the University of Pennsylvania for a number of years and I realized that all you can do is encourage people and give them assignments and hope they will write them.