We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say – and to feel – “Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.”

Source:The Art of Fiction No. 45, Interviewed by Nathaniel Benchley (Issue no 48, Fall 1969), Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews - Fourth Series (1976), Page 183
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