The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just recently fallen in love is undisguisable

Homesickness is nothing Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time

A collection of short stories is generally thought to be a horrendous clinker an enforced courtesy for the elderly writer who wants to display the trophies of his youth, along with his trout flies

For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain [and] the noise of battle. [It] has the power to give grief or universality that lends it a youthful beauty

When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places

I sometimes go back to walk through the ghostly remains of Sutton Place where the rude, new buildings stand squarely in one another's river views

Art is the triumph over chaos