Literature is dialogue; responsiveness. Literature might be described as the history of human responsiveness to what is alive and what is moribund as cultures evolve and interact with one another. Writers can do something to combat these cliches of our separateness, our difference - for writers are makers, not just transmitters, of myths. Literature offers not only myths but counter-myths, just as life offers counter-experiences - experiences that confound what you thought you thought, or felt, or believed.

The writer in me distrusts the good citizen, the 'intellectual ambassador,' the human rights activist - those roles which are mentioned in the citation for thi…

A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world. That means trying to understand, take in, connect with, what wickedness human beings are capable…

We are told we must choose - the old or the new. In fact, we must choose both. What is a life if not a series of negotiations between the old and the new? It s…

The face of nature and civilization in this our country is to a certain point a very sufficient literary field. But it will yield its secrets only to a really …

'The task of an American writer is not to describe the misgivings of a woman taken in adultery as she looks out of a window at the rain but to describe four hu…

The writer is the engineer of the human soul.