“...each part of a story, each word if possible, was to work frontally as well as laterally... ("Conveyance: The Story I would Not Want Bill Wilson To Read")”

“Comparisons deplete the actuality of the things compared... ("Conveyance: The Story I would Not Want Bill Wilson To Read")”

“You might say as you tirelessly said of my stories, at least of the adjectives, that I should render the evidence, not render the verdict... ("Conveyance: The Story I would Not Want Bill Wilson To Read")”

“It was a very American story, somehow. 'Lost.' Each community had such stories. Possibly, each family.”

“Many times when I read a book, I want to savor each word, each phrase, each page, loving the prose so much, I don’t want it to end. Other times the story pulls me in, and I can hardly read fast enough, the details flying by, some of them lost because all that matters is making sure the character is all right when it’s over.”

“I watched the people passing below, each of them a story, each story part of somebody else's, all of it connected to the big story of the world. People weren't islands, so far as I was concerned. How could they be, when their stories kept getting tangled up in everybody else's?”