"Reality is not always probable, or likely. But if you're writing a story, you have to make it as plausible as you can…"

"All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial…"

"..Eyewitness history, flawed as it may be, is frequently more useful and accurate than attempts to reconstruct histor…"

"Don't let them tell us stories. Don't let them say of the man sentenced to death "He is going to pay his debt to soci…"

"Isn't it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they…"

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live."

"Storyless spaces, like black holes, suck ferociously on whatever comes into their orbit in their need to be occupied."

"In telling a story, in depicting it, one makes it exist in its particularity with its beginning and its end, its glor…"

"Plot does not define story. Plot is the framework within which ideas are explored and personalities and relationships…"

"Stories help explain themselves; if you know how something happened, you begin to see why it happened."