I hated Hemingway. I liked Faulkner but he was a bore.

One of the most difficult things in writing a novel or anything at all is to choose the point of view from which it's going to be told.

The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.

Gasping for breath, the body still battling for life.

I'm sure Proust was a big bore.

I got this idea of doing a really serious big work-it would be precisely like a novel, with a single difference: Every word of it would be true from beginning to end.

You don't understand. You've never hated anybody. No, I never have. We're allotted just so much time on earth, and I wouldn't want the Lord to see me wasting mine in any such manner.