There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.

The past is almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.

I seem to be the only person in the world who doesn't mind being pitied. If you love me, pity me. The human state is pitiable: born to die, capable of so much, accomplishing so little; killing instead of creating, destroying instead of building, hating instead of loving. Pitiful, pitiful.

At fourteen, you don't need sickness or death for tragedy.

It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes. It takes more guts and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.