Top 13 Quotes & Sayings by Leonard Michaels

Is the story developing an attitude or victimized by it.

There is always something for which there is no accounting. Take, for example, the whole world.

Of mystery there is no end. Of clarity, there is precious little.

Looking at a cat, like looking at clouds or stars or the ocean, makes it difficult to believe there is nothing miraculous in this world.

Self-confidence can be crippling.

There's hardly anywhere in literature where you don't find a triangle.

I can only gesture at what makes a story good.

Stories should be natural as apples, brief as lust, long as a thought.

Some animals are secretive; some are shy. A cat is private.

Sometimes language gets in the way of the story's feelings. The reader finds himself experiencing the language of the story rather than the story. The words sit there on the page like coins, with their own opacity, as though they're there for their own sake. "A man goes into a phone booth, stirring coins in his palm." "Stirring" is such an obviously selected word. You can feel the writer looking for the word as he sat at the typewriter.

The prose as such has to be singing the song the story is telling.

I read assiduously. I kept in touch with my species.

Adultery is not about sex or romance. Ultimately, it is about how little we mean to one another.