Isaac Bashevis Singer, New York Times Magazine, Nov. 26, 1978

The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual -- when it begins to ignore the passions, the motions -- it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance.

We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.

What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.