“A writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.”

“And the poem, I think, is only your voice speaking.”

“The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.”

“A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.”

“Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.”

“And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and...”

“Judge the goodness of a book by the energy of the punches it has given you. I believe the greatest characteristic of gen...”

“Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality.”

“The isolated imagination is easily corrupted by theory, but the writer inside his community seldom has such a problem.”

“All canonical writing possesses the quality "of making you feel strangeness at home.”

“Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.”

“A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”