Between the wolf in the tall grass and the wolf in the tall story there is a shimmering go-between. That go-between, that prism, is the art of literature.

I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.

Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoievsky as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist.

There is nothing in the world that I loathe more than group activity, that communal bath where the hairy and slippery mix in a multiplication of mediocrity.

A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.

She was like Marat only with nobody to kill her.

Why should I tolerate a perfect stranger at the bedside of my mind?