Words are nets through which all truth escapes.

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.

Labels not only free us from the obligation to think creatively; they numb our sensibilities, our power to feel. During the Vietnam War, the phrase body count entered our vocabulary. It is an ambiguous phrase, inorganic, even faintly sporty. It distanced us from the painful reality of corpses, of dead, mutilated people.

we are, in this country, more open to new ideas. But we are also, it seems to me, more inclined to hail the new as absolute truth - until the next new comes along.

I've always known a lot of very bad people, destructive, brutes of a certain kind. Then I've seen these lovely impulses and what not, and they've stayed with me and comforted me.

I have a painter's memory. I can remember things from my childhood which were so powerfully imprinted on me, the whole scene comes back.

Literature is the province of imagination, and stories, in whatever guise, are meditations on life.