Of course one never knows in draft if it's going to turn out, even with my age and experience.

A writer who has never explored words, who has never searched, seeded, sieved, sifted through his knowledge and memory...dictiona ries, thesaurus, poems, favorite paragraphs, to find the right word, is like someone owning a gold mine who has never mined it.

You must remember garden catalogues are as big liars as house-agents.

When you learn to read you will be born again...and you will never be quite so alone again.

For an author nothing is as dead as a book once it is written.

Memory is the only friend of grief.

I don't know if I believe in God, but I know I believe in the devil. I have met him.