We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are.

Work for most people is really very social, and the actual thinking is often done in community.

I was giving up--being realistic, as people liked to say, meaning the same thing. Being realistic made me feel bitter.

Reasons always came with a purpose, to give the appearance of a struggle between principle and desire. Principle had power only until you found what you had to have.

The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness.

When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falling and dying are for quitters. We live on the innocent and monstrous assurance that we alone, of all the people ever born, have a special arrangement whereby we will be allowed to stay green forever

But a lot of writers - and I'm one of them - do tend to feel dissatisfied. It makes you a little hard to live with, but it's a goad and does keep you alert and restless.