“It is not a single cowardice that drives us into fiction's fantasies. We often fear that literature is a game we can't afford to play the product of idleness and immoral ease. In the grip of that ...”

“Freud thought that a psychosis was a waking dream, and that poets were daydreamers too, but I wonder if the reverse is not as often true, and that madness is a fiction lived in like a rented house”

“Its not the word made flesh we want in writing, in poetry and fiction, but the flesh made word”

“I write because I hate. A lot. Hard.”

“So to the wretched writer I should like to say that theres one body only whose request for your caresses is not vulgar, is not unchaste, untoward, or impolite: the body of your work itself; for you...”

“Fiction becomes visual by becoming verbal”

“Im not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. Ive seen a chunk of the universe, true, but theres still so much more to see. I doubt Ill ever cure t...”

“My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,My gentle guide, in following thee.”

“Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmonious...”

“A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.”

“Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”

“My short stories are like soft shadows I have set out in the world, faint footprints I have left. I remember exactly where I set down each and every one of them, and how I felt when I did. Short st...”

“I dont know what else to say.""There is nothing else to say. A few minutes of words cant change years of absurdity.”

“I don’t know what else to say.""There is nothing else to say. A few minutes of words can’t change years of absurdity.”