It Was A Splendid Summer Morning And

Fiction Must Compete With First-rate Reporting. If You Cannot Write A Story That Is Equal To A Factual Account Of Battle In The Streets Or Demonstrations, Then You Can't Write A Story.

All Literary Men Are Red Sox Fans - To Be A Yankee Fan In A Literate Society Is To Endanger Your Life.

These Stories Seem At Times To Be Stories Of A Long-lost World When The City Of New York Was Still Filled With A River Light, When You Heard The Benny Goodman Quartets From A Radio In The Corner Stationery Store, And When Almost Everybody Wore A Hat.

The World That Was Not Mine Yesterday Now Lies Spread Out At My Feet, A Splendor. I Seem, In The Middle Of The Night, To Have Returned To The World Of Apples, The Orchards Of Heaven. Perhaps I Should Take My Problems To A Shrink, Or Perhaps I Should Enjoy The Apples That I Have, Streaked With Color Like The Evening Sky.

I Write To Make Sense Of My Life." -john Cheever, Quoted In _cheever - A Life_ (2009) By Blake Bailey