“On we read, confusing the characters with the incidents and neglecting the outcome, but tickled by the images and the turns of the talk. It is frivolous stuff, and how rare, how precious is frivolity! How few writers can prostitute all their powers!”

“You learn to write by writing, and by reading and thinking about how writers have created their characters and invented their stories. If you are not a reader, don't even think about being a writer.”

“How can a novelist achieve atonement when with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also god?”

“[T]he government of the world is carried on by Sovereigns and statesmen, and not by anonymous paragraph writers, or by the harebrained chatter of irresponsible frivolity.”

“It's like a vicious cycle. How the hell could you turn around and be a buyer with all of this stuff going on?”

“The Plankton character was only supposed to be in one or two episodes, but I was a writer on the show and I really liked this character. Stephen told me to come up with more ideas for Plankton. I’m not just his voice. I get to create how the character is written and how he evolves over time. You very rarely get that experience.”

“Even read in such broken bits Origen is real food and drink. You can feel it being absorbed, right away, into your very blood. How terse, how compact he is! All this modern stuff is barley-water in comparison.”

“Laughter rarely lasts longer than a few seconds, it's true. But how enjoyable those few seconds are.”

“If I am asked about the photographer’s role in our times, the power of the image and so on, I do not want to launch into explanations. I only know that people who know how to look are as rare as those who know how to listen.”

“Art is magic. So say the surrealists. But how is it magic? In its metaphysical development? Or does some final transformation culminate in a magic reality? In truth, the latter is impossible without the former. If creation is not magic, the outcome cannot be magic. To worship the product and ignore its development leads to dilettantism and reaction. Art cannot result from sophisticated, frivolous, or superficial effects.”