A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life. It tells us that for every human being there is a diversity of existences, that the single existence is itself an illusion in part, that these many existences signify something, tend to something, fulfill something; it promises us meaning, harmony, and even justice.

Writers are greatly respected. The intelligent public is wonderfully patient with them, continues to read them, and endures disappointment after disappointment…

Our media make crisis chatter out of news and fill our minds with anxious phantoms of the real thing - a summit in Helsinki, a treaty in Egypt, a constitutiona…

No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection.

The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that's where it's …

There's never gonna be a moment of truth for you While the world is watching All you need is the thing you forgotten And that's to learn to live with what you …

The Golden Notebook for some reason surprised people but it was no more than you would hear women say in their kitchens every day in any country. ... I was rea…