William Kennedy

“For me, the city is a character, it's a living thing.”

“The function of the artist is to invent, not to chronicle.”

“The writer's job is to get the story out, get it on paper, and make it work.”

“I think the sense of place is a primary character in my work.”

“You write what you know, and I know Albany.”

“I learned to write by writing.”

“I was discovering that the most important thing in writing is to be able to look at things as a child does.”

“Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance: bad luck, loss, pain.”

“What you remember saves you.”

“Everything you write is a love story. If you don't feel that, you're not writing.”

“The secret of a good life is to have the right enemies.”

“You can go back to something that happened 40 years ago, and you're still living it.”

“All fiction is a form of autobiography.”