Imagination has to do with one's awareness of the reality of other people as well as of one's own reality. Imagination is a bridge between the provin….

The language of labels is like paper money, issued irresponsibly, with nothing of intrinsic value behind it, that is, with no effort of the intellige….

Teachers inspire the smallest hearts to grow big enough to change the world..

When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child's hands, you are bringing that child news of the infinitely varied nature of life. You are a….

A good novel begins with a small question and ends with a bigger one..

Families hold each other in an iron grip of definition. One must break the grip, somehow..

Life is all getting used to what you're not used to..

To be human is to be in a story..

The minute you become conscious that you are doing good, that's the minute you have to stop because from then on it's wrong..

I don't like to listen to music while I'm working..

In my early twenties, that's when I really began to write. Before that, I was too busy working, keeping myself going..

I was the goldfish that leapt out of the bowl..

When I begin a story at my desk, the window to my back, the path is not there. As I start to walk, I make the path..

Labels not only free us from the obligation to think creatively; they numb our sensibilities, our power to feel. During the Vietnam War, the phrase b….

I have a painter's memory. I can remember things from my childhood which were so powerfully imprinted on me, the whole scene comes back..

I taught writing classes at the University of Pennsylvania for a number of years and I realized that all you can do is encourage people and give them….

People steal into one's consciousness and occupy what seems, in retrospect, to have been their place all along..

My first job was working in a dress shop in Los Angeles in 1940, for $7 a week..

My life was incoherent to me. I felt it quivering, spitting out broken teeth..

A lie hides the truth. A story tries to find it..

If a person had accused him of meanness, he could have defended himself. But with a dog - you did something cheap to it when you were sure no one was….