The imagination is not the consolation people pretend. It can even be regarded as the admission of some sort of failure.

Biography can be the most middle-class of all forms, the judgment of little people avenging themselves on the great.

The most important things in our intimate lives can't be discussed with strangers, except in books.

I think that there are empty ecological niches in the literary landscape crying to be filled and when a book more or less fills a niche it's seized on, even when it's a far from perfect fit...

I think sincerity was my sole aesthetic and realism my experimental technique.

Paris... is a world meant for the walker alone, for only the pace of strolling can take in all the rich (if muted) detail.

As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excuse me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm an identity I was unhappily piecing together

Tennessee Williams recognized that great theater begins with great talkers, and that great talkers obey two rules: they never sound like anyone else and they never say anything directly.

If I take a less defensive tone, I'd admit that I couldn't write today a very jazzy, contemporary look at America as I did in 1979 in States of Desire.

Ive always seen writing as a way of telling the truth. For me, writing is about truth. I have always tried to be faithful to my own experience.

I didn't want to write a biographie romancee especially since I already write novels, nor did I want to challenge the rules of the biography game, arbitrary as those rules might be

Most people living in the world are confused about life

Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.

What deserves my loyalty, art or prestige?

I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead.

You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you; it’s turned your flesh into its own cupboard. Not everything remembered is useful but it all comes from the world to be stored in you.

A society in which marriage is encouraged and industry prevails soon repairs the accidental losses of pestilence and war.

String theory is 21 st century physics that fell accidentally into the 20th century.

Sometimes we win, sometimes we learn.

I got a few Mrs. Bradys in my life.

Know that everything will happen at just the right time, at just the right place, with just the right people.