It’s amazing what lies people can sustain behind the mask of their real faces.

Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself

Like all enjoyable things, you see, it has unenjoyable parts to it.

Obviously the facts are never just coming at you but are incorporated by an imagination that is formed by your previous experience. Memories of the past are not memories of facts but memories of your imaginings of the facts.

A life of writing books is a trying adventure in which you cannot find out where you are unless you lose your way.

The best readers come to fiction to be free of ... all that isn't fiction.

Oh, to be a center fielder, a center fielder- and nothing more