Ruefulness is one of the classical tones of American fiction. It fosters a native, deglamorized form of anxiety.

Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader's teeth.

The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait.

To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.

If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it's great, it should be read at least three times.

In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives.

Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.

The first divorce in the world may have been a tragedy, but the hundred-millionth is not necessarily one.

A bookcase is as good as a view, as much of a panorama as the sight of a city or a river. There are dawns and sunsets in books - storms and zephyrs.

There are few things more subtly distressing than an inappropriate gift from someone close to you.

The tension between 'yes' and no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot,' makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

I want you to be weak. As weak as I am.

Life has too many disappointments to make room for negativity.

You never can tell about these mild-mannered boys.

I always like routine. I suppose I never found boredom very boring.

Most painters want recognition, especially by their peers.

Men never believe a woman can do anything.

Men are seldom underrated; the mercury in a man finds its true level in the eyes of the world just as certainly as it does in the glass of a thermometer.

When you little, you only get asked two questions, what’s your name and how old you is, so you better get em right.

Without love, the world itself would not survive.

I've never been motivated by money. My peers and colleagues inspire me.