In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.

Dames lie about anything - just for practice.

I always find what I want. But when I find it, I don't want it any more.

The most durable thing in writing is style. It is a projection of personality and you have to have a personality before you can project it. It is the product of emotion and perception.

Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find outside an advertising agency.

The challenge is to write about real things magically.

The impulse to perfection cannot exist where the definition of perfection is the arbitrary decision of authority. That which is born in loneliness and from the heart cannot be defended against the judgment of a committee of sycophants. The volatile essences which make literature cannot survive the clichés of a long series of story conferences.