“Are artists and writers the only people entitled to lives of their own?”

“I think a writer is not an ideal husband. . . . Writers tend to get off into their own heads and not notice the people that they’re living with, or they get irritable with the people that they’re living with when the people insist on being noticed.”

“Thackeray's a good writer and Flaubert is a great artist. Trollope is a good writer and Dickens is a great artist. Colette is a very good writer and Proust is a great artist. Katherine Anne Porter was an extremely good writer and Willa Cather was a great artist.”

“I think all artists struggle to represent the geometryof life in their own way, just like writers deal witharchetypes. There are only so many stories that you cantell, but an infinite number of storytellers.”

“Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.”

“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”