Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.

I have a feeling that art is something you do for yourself, and that any time you turn your decisions over to someone else you're postponing at best, your own development. The atmosphere of the workshop should be that of trying out one's own work and accepting the signals from others but not accepting the dictation of others because that is a violation of the spirit of art. Art can't be done by somebody else, it has got to be done by the artist.

Literature is not a picture of life, but is a separate experience with its own kind of flow and enhancement.

I don't see writing as a communication of something already discovered, as "truths" already known. Rather, I see writing as a job of experiment. It's like any discovery job; you don't know what's going to happen until you try it.

Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.

There are so many things admirable people do not understand.

Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music.