The purpose of fiction is not to nail you to the ground as facts do, but to take you to the edge of the cliff and kick you off so you build your wings on the way down.

Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.

First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys.

Poverty made a sound like a wet cough in the shadows of the room.

Out of the nursery into the college and back into the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.

Don’t let people interfere with you. Boot ’em out, turn off the phone, hide away, get it done. If you carry a short story over to the next day you may overnight intellectualize something about it and try to make it too fancy, try to please someone.

Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything.