Isolation from power makes men look for a mob in which they can be strong.

Literature boils with the madcap careers of writers brought to the edge by the demands of living on their nerves, wringing out their memories and their nightmares to extract meaning, truth, beauty.

The steady pressure to consume, absorb, participate, receive, by eye, ear, mouth, and mail involves a cruelty to intestines, blood pressure, and psyche unparalleled in history.

Catastrophe and desire are linked in our lives as the moon is linked to that reflected light from the sun which enables the eye to see it.

Conformity is inevitable when folks huddle together in rebellion.

Being a writer is a rather hazardous occupation and there is a horribly high rate of writers who barely have the money for the paper and pen they use for their craft.

The would-bees take their honey from the flowers of creation.

The fact that all of us die anyway (the rumor turns out to be true) is a mere detail in the celestial glow of imagination. The artist's eyes destroy death.

The magic will which makes us see the other side of our natures-dream and disaster, catastrophe and fulfillment-is the great permanent challenge of humanity.

If mankind is naturally good, he is sure going against his nature more and more of the time. It sounds like a bad joke: the paranoids are after us.

With short stories, the story-teller must have a story to tell, not merely some sweet prose to take out for a walk

So long as victory can be attained,   stupid haste is preferable to clever dilatoriness.

Travel, leave everything, copy the birds. The home is one of civilization’s sadnesses.

In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.

Your father only has one foot on this earth. And really, really long legs . . .

Sacrifice is nothing other than the production of sacred things.

We are taught what reality is in all kinds of ways.

Don’t see the notes. See the music. See the story it is telling you. Allow the music to change you. Allow it to give you the courage to do whatever you need to

Praise God for the hammer, the file, and the furnace. The hammer molds us, the file sharpens us, and the fire tempers us.

The reader can't take much for granted in a fiction where the scenery can eat the characters.

Around the world, the generals are being ousted, and the poets are taking charge.