The autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way as to make the girl who was moving there seem fixed to a sliding walk, letting the motion of the wind and the leaves carry her forward. [...] The trees overhead made a great sound of letting down their dry rain.

Every day is Christmas Day to a dog.

It's lack that gives us inspiration. It's not fullness.

Lone at night, when I was twelve years old, I looked at the planet Mars and I said, 'Take me home!' And the planet Mars took me home, and I never came back. So I've written every day in the last 75 years. I've never stopped writing.

I did what most writers do at their beginnings: emulated my elders, imitated my peers, thus turning away from any possibility of discovering truths beneath my skin and behind my eye.

Collecting facts is important. Knowledge is important. But if you don't have an imagination to use the knowledge, civilization is nowhere.

You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn.