The makers of the short story have rarely been good novelists.

It's very important to feel foreign. I was born in England, but when I'm being a writer, everyone in England is foreign to me.

How extraordinary it is that one feels most guilt about the sins one is unable to commit.

It is the role of the poet to look at what is happening in the world and to know that quite other things are happening.

All writers - all people - have their stores of private and family legends which lie like a collection of half-forgotten, often violent toys on the floor of memory.

The novel...creates a bemusing effect. The short story, on the other hand wakes the reader up. Not only that, it answers the primitive craving for art, the wit, paradox and beauty of shape, the longing to see a dramatic pattern and significance in our experience.

One recalls how much the creative impulse of the best-sellers depends upon self-pity. It is an emotion of great dramatic potential.