Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and nonfiction. And even there, who can be sure?

The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that is cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.

She looked, and a scarlet butterfly flew away from her, away down the length of the tower, and then another, another, an unraveling scarf of butterflies like winged blood.

Archetypes are universal, and, in subtle or extravagant ways, interchangeable.

We need the expressive arts, the ancient scribes, the storytellers, the priests.

The soul is a magician. Only living flesh hampers it.

When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it.

I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of normal work.

No one is ever ordinary.

Maidens who stay maidens turn into saints. Old women become sorceresses. Tough jobs, both of these.

When we think of all the beatitudes in life, our heart shall be merry.

Outlines are the last resource of bad fiction writers who wish to God they were writing masters' theses.

Dreams come true if we can overcome the fear of failure and pursue them.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

This is how Americans think. You believe that if something terrible happens to someone, they must have deserved it.

I just wanted to play a cowboy for a long time.

None but mothers know each other's feelings when we give up our daughters whom we love and cherish so tenderly to the mercies of a man, and perhaps even a stranger.

This culture seems to be so obsessed with sexuality, the good and the bad of it. Every advertisement, every preacher, everybody's concerned, one way or the other about sexuality.

There are days when I can hear men tying their shoe laces in the gallery.

The place to observe nature is where you are.