It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.
Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader's teeth.
To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.
People have no idea what a hard job it is for two writers to be friends. Sooner or later you have to talk about each other's work.
The epic implications of being human end in more than this: We start our lives as if they were momentous stories, with a beginning, a middle and an appropriate end, only to find that they are mostly middles.
Lapped in poetry, wrapped in the picturesque, armed with logical sentences and inalienable words.
When friends stop being frank and useful to each other, the whole world loses some of its radiance.
