"Writers collect things. We read magazines, we ride buses and eavesdrop on other people's conversations, we stop and read posters on telephone poles, we examine soup cans and old clothing stores and babies and pets and sewer covers and weather reports. We delve into ancient history, old gossip, rumors, hints of rumors, maps, brochures, irrelevant details, bad advice, good omens, lucky stars, and things that are nobody's business. In short, we are called to be witnesses. Things may happen, but unless someone takes note of it, it might not matter."

“I like the idea of a literary patchwork, novel by novel, poem by poem, by different writers, mapping out an era, 'a continent' more and more thoroughly. No one writer can do it.”

“Les sots font le texte, et les hommes d'esprit les commentaires.”

“An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere. (9 December 1852)”

“All I knew then was what I couldn't do. All I knew then was what I wasn't, and it took me some years to discover what I was.Which was a writer.By which I mean not a “good” writer or a “bad” writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper.”

“And hold up to the sun my little taper.”

“But every fool describes, in these bright days,His wondrous journey to some foreign court,And spawns his quarto, and demands your praise,—Death to his publisher, to him 'tis sport.”