A character has his own logic. He goes his way, one goes with him; he has some perceptions, one perceives them with him. You do him justice; you don’t grind your own axe.

A fool can throw a stone in a pond that a 100 wise men can’t get out.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is great.

A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.

A writer is a reader moved to emulation.

Alternatives, and particularly desirable alternatives, grow only on imaginary trees.

Any artist should be grateful for a naive grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.

Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm … an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.

Every writer’s assumption is that he is as other human beings are, and that they are more or less as he is. There’s a principle of psychic unity. [Writing] was not meant to be an occult operation; it was not meant to be an esoteric secret.

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Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.