there is no gain without risk, perhaps no risk without love.

One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you're maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed.

You have to go where the book leads you.

I got letters from people that have had peculiar psychic experiences, experiences with the dead - sometimes fairly tranquil experiences and sometimes very terrifying experiences. I do believe that a lot of them are sincere. I do believe, also, that some of them may be misguided. But, I think the majority of them have experienced something.

Home is watching the moon rise over the open, sleeping land and having someone you can call to the window, so you can look together. Home is where you dance with others, and dancing is life.

It was really amazing the number of hard hits from which a mind could recover.

As a species we're fundamentally insane.