“So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to notice the terrible sameness, age after age.”

“It is not easy to be crafty and winsome at the same time, and few accomplish it after the age of six.”

“So, when I write a piece of fiction I select my characters and settings and so on because they have a bearing, at least to me, on the old unanswerable philosophical questions. And as I spin out the action, I’m always very concerned with springing discoveries -- actual philosophical discoveries. But at the same time I’m concerned -- and finally more concerned -- with what the discoveries do to the character who makes them, and to the people around him. It’s that that makes me not really a philosopher, but a novelist.”

“Bad art is always basically creepy; that is its first and most obvious identifying sign”

“He could forget all these people, just like that, become fond again of strangers and leave them too.”

“There is some realm where feelings become birds and dark sky, and spirit is more solid than stone.”

“The best way a writer can find to keep himself going is to live off his (or her) spouse. The trouble is that, psychologically at least, it’s hard. Our culture teaches none of its false lessons more carefully than that one should never be dependent. Hence the novice or still unsuccessful writer, who has enough trouble believing in himself, has the added burden of shame. It’s hard to be a good writer and a guilty person; a lack of self-respect creeps into one’s prose.”