We can't all be friends and relatives as the world is; most of us have to be strangers.

Usually when he forgot words he would wait for them to seep back into consciousness like fish drawn up to the hungry surface of a stream. He would remember the initial letter of the forgotten word or sense sounds in it; soon the word reappeared in an illumination.

Writing is a mode of being. If I write I live.

The great thing about writing: Stay with it ... ultimately you teach yourself something very important about yourself.

All my life I wanted to accomplish something worthwhile-a thing people will say took a little something ...

Some men are by nature explorers; my nature is to stay under the same moon and stars, and if the weather is wet, under the same roof. It's a strange world, why make it stranger?

No use fanning up hot coals when you have to walk across them.

We have in my country (Russia) a quotation: "It is impossible to make out of apology a fur coat."

Even at her loneliest she liked being among books, although she was sometimes depressed to see how much there was to read that she hadn't.

Tomorrow the world is not the same as today, though God listens with the same ear.