Every great or even every very good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications.

I've done as many as 20 or 30 drafts of a story. Never less than 10 or 12 drafts.

My circumstances of unrelieved responsibility and permanent distraction necessitated the short story form.

There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I'd like to know. I wish someone could tell me.

The smooth stones you pick up and examine under the moon's light have been made blue from the sea. Next morning when you pull them from your trouser pocket, they are still blue.

Art doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it.

Something’s died in me,” she goes. “It took a long time for it to do it, but it’s dead. You’ve killed something, just like you’d took an axe to it. Everything is dirt now.