When seriously explored, the short story seems to me the most difficult and disciplining form of prose writing extant. Whatever control and technique I may have I owe entirely to my training in this medium.

He’d always been willing to confess his faults, for, by admitting them, it was as if he made them no longer exist.

It should take you about four seconds to walk from here to the door. I'll give you two.

I don't mean I'd mind being rich and famous. That's very much on my schedule and someday I'll try to get around to it.

She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if only because it contains paradox. In this case, as opposed to the scrupulous method of good taste and scientific grooming, the trick had been worked by exaggerating defects; she'd made them ornamental by admitting them boldly.

I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.

It's like a jumble of huts in a jungle somewhere. I don't understand how you can live there. It's really, completely dead. Walk along the street, there's nothing moving. I've lived in small Spanish fishing villages which were literally sunny all day long everyday of the week, but they weren't as boring as Los Angeles.