“One false word, one extra word, and somebody's thinking about how they have to buy paper towels at the store.”

I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things were which produced the emotion that you experienced…the real thing, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as valid in a year or ten years or, with luck and if you stated it purely enough, always.

“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.”

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.