Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion.

Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion.

When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.

When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.

Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to read more

Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come.

I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.

I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.

In judging others, folks will work overtime for no pay.

In judging others, folks will work overtime for no pay.

Quotes from Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara... are as germane to our highly technological, computerized society as a stagecoach on read more

Quotes from Mao, Castro, and Che Guevara... are as germane to our highly technological, computerized society as a stagecoach on a jet runway at Kennedy airport.

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order read more

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order to become its echo I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence.

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on read more

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

Wear the old coat and buy the new book.

Wear the old coat and buy the new book.