When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason had left them.

Whatever is felt upon the page without being specifically named there — that, one might say, is created.

The air and the earth interpenetrated in the warm gusts of spring; the soil was full of sunlight, and the sunlight full of red dust. The air one breathed was saturated with earthy smells, and the grass under foot had a reflection of the blue sky in it.

Success is less interesting than struggle. There is great pleasure in the effort.

I don't want anyone reading my writing to think about style. I just want them to be in the story.

Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world; but here the earth was the floor of the sky.

Paris is a hard place to leave, even when it rains incessantly and one coughs continually from the dampness.