I began to ration my writing, for fear I would dream through life as my father had done. I was afraid I had inherited a poisoned gene from him, a vocation without a gift.

Decide what the rest of your life is to be. Whatever you are now, you might be forever.

Success can only be measured in terms of distance traveled.

A short story is what you see when you look out of the window.

There are a great many opinions in this world, and a good half of them are professed by people who have never been in trouble.

All lives are interesting; no one life is more interesting than another. Its fascination depends on how much is revealed, and in what manner.

Writing is like a love affair: the beginning is the best part.

She and Marie were Montreal girls, not trained to accompany heroes, or to hold out for dreams, but just to be patient.

I write every day as a matter of course It is not a burden. It is the way I live.

I believed that if I was to call myself a writer, I should live on writing. If I could not live on it, even simply, I should destroy every scrap, every trace, every notebook and live some other way.

A writer's life stands in relation to his work as a house does to a garden, related but distinct.

So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.

What is your specific mission in life?

Orange?" He seems unconvinced."Not bright orange. But soft. Like the sunset, " I say. "At least, that's what you told me once.

Confession and repentance might be described as the negative side of submission

The beauty of modesty ... a virtue the world doesn't have much truck with: one ordinary flower in a vase, as opposed to a bouquet.

People ask me how far I've come. And I tell them twelve feet: from the audience to the stage.

Everything is good . . . as long as it is unpossessed. Satiety and possession are Death's horses they run in span.

After I win a match, I celebrate it by having an ice cream.

Granddad was superstitious about books. He thought that if you had enough of them around, education leaked out, like radioactivity.

All cultures have been mingled forever.