When I begin a story at my desk, the window to my back, the path is not there. As I start to walk, I make the path.

It was hard to reassure grown-ups when you weren't certain yourself what you were feeling and thinking—when thoughts dissolved before you could name them.

Words are nets through which all truth escapes.

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.

And what movies we saw! All the actors and actresses whose photographs I collected, with their look of eternity! Their radiance, their eyes, their faces, their voices, the suavity of their movements! Their clothes! Even in prison movies, the stars shone in their prison clothes as if tailors had accompanied them in their downfall.

When I begin a story at my desk, the window to my back, the path is not there. As I start to walk, I make the path.

The minute you become conscious that you are doing good, that's the minute you have to stop because from then on it's wrong.