Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding?

Too late, but I understand. That we don't perish of understanding everything too late, that is a miracle. But we do perish of that -- of just that.

Stop worrying about growing old. And think about growing up.

Everybody has a hard job. All real work is hard. My work happened also to be undoable. Morning after morning for 50 years, I faced the next page defenseless and unprepared. Writing for me was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.

Seeing is believing and believing is knowing and knowing beats unknowing and the unknown.

Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing.

I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and turn it around again.