When I was a child I truly loved: Unthinking love as calm and deep As the North Sea. But I have lived, And now I do not sleep..

As a rule of thumb I say, if Socrates, Jesus and Tolstoy wouldn't do it, don't..

I couldn't go on, too conscious all at once of my whispering, my eternal posturing, always transforming the world with words--changing nothing..

As every writer knows... there is something mysterious about the writer's ability, on any given day, to write. When the juices are flowing, or the wr….

We know that where community exists in confers upon its members identity, a sense of belonging, and a measure of security. . . . Communities are the ….

Our noblest hopes grow teeth and pursue us like tigers..

Fiction does not spring into the world fully grown, like Athena. It is the process of writing and rewriting that makes a fiction original, if not pro….

Art Gropes. It stalks like a hunter lost in the woods, listening to itself and to everything around it, unsure of itself, waiting to pounce..

Talking, talking. Spinning a web of words, pale walls of dreams, between myself and all I see..

People will tell you that writing is too difficult, that it's impossible to get your work published, that you might as well hang yourself. Meanwhile,….

Self pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from….

One must be just a little crazy to write a great novel. One must be capable of allowing the darkest, most ancient and shrewd parts of one’s being to ….

...ultimately it come down to, are you making or are you destroying? If you try very hard to create ways of living, create dreams of what is possible….

The primary subject of fiction is and has always been human emotion, values, and beliefs..

The true artist plays mad with his soul, labors at the very lip of the volcano, but remembers and clings to his purpose, which is as strong as the dr….

What art ought to do is tell stories which are moment-by-moment wonderful, which are true to human experience, and which in no way explain human expe….

The citizen can bring our political and governmental institutions back to life, make them responsive and accountable, and keep them honest. No one el….

One of the many interesting challenges nature presents us is its apparent disinterest in maintaining the order humans crave..

I know everything, you see,' the old voice wheedled. 'The beginning, the present, the end. Everything. You now, you see the past and the present, lik….

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing i….

Art, of course, is a way of thinking, a way of mining reality..