In fiction I think we should have no agenda but to tell the truth.

it is an easy mistake to think that non-talkers are non-feelers.

Values, both those that we approve and those that we don't, have roots as deep as creosote rings, and live as long and grow as slowly

Young writers should be encouraged to write, and discouraged from thinking they are writers. If they arrive at college with literary ambitions, they should be told that everything they have done since their first childhood poems, printed in the school paper, has been preparation for entering a long, long apprenticeship.

Is that the basis of friendship? Is it as reactive as that? Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?... Do we all buzz or ring or light up when people press our vanity buttons, and only then? Can I think of anyone in my whole life whom I have liked without his first showing signs of liking me?

In a way, it is beautiful to be young and hard up. With the right wife, and I had her, deprivation became a game.

I balked at nothing, I was above nothing. Everything had something to teach me.