The secret of literature, which conventional people don't guess, is that writers are forever looking for the surprising revelation - not for reinforcement of collective wisdom.

It is very difficult to teach navigation theory to someone who clings to the shore.

An essay is a work of literary art which has a minimum of one anecdote and one universal idea.

The more original a short-story writer, the odder looking the assortment of things he or she puts together for a story.

Literature has low enough standards. But we can avoid writing the worst literature if we make ourselves ask ourselves, every two or three sentences we write, 'Is that what I really think?'

The principle of literature is devotion to the particulars of life.

No work of literature is the product of only one or two conscious ideas. A story is mysteriously dense of meaning.

For a short-story writer, a story is the combination of what the writer supposed the story would likely be about - plus what actually turned up in the course of writing.

Apprenticeship is one of the dearest roles of childhood, not just watching Dad or Mother, but being taught a hands-on trade.

Emily was feeling the elation of conscientious hosts when they can temporarily escape a ubiquitous houseguest.

No one is shallow and vulgar forever; sooner or later the whole species likes to be profound.

The diversity of India, of our civilization, is actually a thing of beauty, which is something we are extremely proud of.

In such doubtful matters, where you have to work as a pioneer, you must be able to put some trust in your intuition and follow your feeling even at the risk of going wrong.

The church is precisely that against which Jesus preached -- and against which he taught his disciples to fight.

Night, the mother of fear and mystery, was coming upon me.

Law and its instrument, government, are necessary to the peace and safety of all of us, but all of us, unless we live the lives of mud turtles, frequently find them arrayed against us.

When you are a writer the assist-to-turnover ratio...there are a lot more turnovers than assists. It's just the nature of the beast.

War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the First World War so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun.

We must learn to give ourselves permission to blunder, to fail, and to make fools of ourselves every day for the rest of our lives. We do so in any case.

Nothing more surely cultivates and embellishes a man than association with refined and virtuous women.

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.