With short stories, the story-teller must have a story to tell, not merely some sweet prose to take out for a walk.

With short stories, the story-teller must have a story to tell, not merely some sweet prose to take out for a walk

I always ask young writers, 'Are you certain you want to be a writer? If you're absolutely sure, then do it.' If you really want to write, writing has to take precedence over everything else, except for taking care of your loved ones. It has to be more important than any possession, more important than fame. We hear about just a few writers who get famous, but most of them don't. It's got to mean more than that.

Being a writer is a rather hazardous occupation and there is a horribly high rate of writers who barely have the money for the paper and pen they use for their craft.

To construct a proper privacy, making it a privilege rather than a burden, we first need to construct a community-love, family, politics, art.

Old age is wasted on the elderly: the young know what to do with it-insist on something different.

The steady pressure to consume, absorb, participate, receive, by eye, ear, mouth, and mail involves a cruelty to intestines, blood pressure, and psyche unparalleled in history.

Isolation from power makes men look for a mob in which they can be strong.

The magic will which makes us see the other side of our natures-dream and disaster, catastrophe and fulfillment-is the great permanent challenge of humanity.

If mankind is naturally good, he is sure going against his nature more and more of the time. It sounds like a bad joke: the paranoids are after us.