No matter what my fucking last words were, please say they were these: 'I have always known that the pursuit of excellence is a lethal habit.
Everybody dies … The thing is, to have a life before we die.
When an orphan is depressed, wrote Wilbur Larch, he is attracted to telling lies. A lie is at least a vigorous enterprise, it keeps you on your toes by making you suddenly responsible for what happens...
Ruth Cole was a novelist; novelists are not at their best when they go off half-cocked. She believed that she would prepare what she was going to tell the police - preferably in writing.
People regard art too highly, and history not enough
On his bedside table, between the reading lamp and the telephone, was his battered copy of David Copperfield. Homer didn't have to open the book to know how the story began. Whether I shall turn out t...
I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them with.
And I find - I'm 63, and my capacity to be by myself and just spend time by myself hasn't diminished any. That's the necessary part of being a writer, you better like being alone.
You can learn a lot from your lovers, but-for the most part-you get to keep your friends longer, and you learn more from them.
JUST BECAUSE A BUNCH OF ATHEISTS ARE BETTER WRITERS THAN THE GUYS WHO WROTE THE BIBLE DOESN'T NECESSARILY MAKE THEM RIGHT! [Owen Meany] said crossly. LOOK AT THOSE WEIRDO TV MIRACLE-WORKERS--THEY'RE T...
It is hard work and great art to make life not so serious.
It galls me that seeking out the seedy, the sordid, the sexual, and the deviant is the expected (if not altogether acceptable) behavior of male writers; it would surely benefit me, as a writer, if I h...
In a school community, someone who reads a book for some secretive purpose, other than discussing it, is strange. What was she reading for?
I TRUST THAT GOD WILL HELP ME, BECAUSE WHAT I’M SUPPOSED TO DO LOOKS VERY HARD.
The lie, of course, is more interesting.
O God — please give him back! I shall keep asking You.
In both classes, Pastor Merrill preached his doubt-is-the-essence-of-and-not-the-opposite-of-faith philosophy
In Ruth's view, they looked 'like a couple' because they seemed to possess some terrible secret between them - they appeared stricken with remorse when they saw her. Only a novelist could ever imagine...
Because who can describe the look that triggers the memory of loved ones? Who can anticipate the frown, the smile, or the misplaced lock of hair that sends a swift, undeniable signal from the past? Wh...
Baseball) is a game with a lot of waiting in it; it is a game with increasingly heightened anticipation of increasingly limited action