They can romanticize us so, mirrors, and that is their secret: what a subtle torture it would be to destroy all the mirrors in the world: where then could we look for reassurerance of our identities? I tell you, my dear, Narcissus was so egotist...he was merely another of us who, in our unshatterable isolation, recognized, on seeing his reflection, the beautiful comrade, the only inseparatable love...poor Narcissus, possibly the only human who was ever honest on this point.

Never demean yourself by talking back to a critic, never. Write those letters to the editor in your head, but don't put them on paper.

As long as you live, there's always something waiting; and even if it's bad, and you know it's bad, what can you do? You can't stop living.

Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.

A work of art is one of mystery, the one extreme magic; everything else is either arithmetic or biology.

Most people who become suddenly famous overnight will find that they lose practically eighty percent of their friends. Your old friends just can't stand it for some reason.

Have you never heard what the wise men say: all of the future exists in the past.