Why are we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that.
It's hard enough to make a novel a novel. I wouldn't know how to make it something else at the same time
We go to literature because it shows us some set of humane values. It is showing us how to live.
There's a kind of perverseness or betrayal in that idea that art is somehow superior to life. Or that it's more important to write well than it is to take out the garbage.
I thought, writing is everything, it's so much more important than this or that. If only I could give that young man a stern talking to. Having a child changes things quite a bit.
I think writers can gain a lot of vitality from being misread.
Hollywood is famous for breeding monsters, and having worked in the business, I've known a lot of them. But only intermittently have I ever found them monstrous. They have many other qualities.
I have a particular style of writing and my voice sounds a particular way, which lends itself to a certain style.
This is not to say I don’t feel my own grief, which can hit powerfully at unexpected times. It’s just that the telling does not automatically bring on my own upset, as people assume. I deal more with their reaction than they do with mine, and so you have to choose your timing.
I've made a profit from everything I have done in life.
The great generalities of the constitution have a content and a significance that vary from age to age.