"Hortense Calisher" was an United States/American writer of fiction.

More Hortense Calisher on Wikipedia.

First publication is a pure, carnal leap into that dark which one dreams is life.

The words! I collected them in all shapes and sizes and hung them like bangles in my mind.

Every art is a church without communicants, presided over by a parish of the respectable. An artist is born kneeling; he fights to stand. A critic, by nature of the judgment seat, is born sitting.

This is my answer to the gap between ideas and action - I will write it out.

A happy childhood can't be cured. Mine'll hang around my neck like a rainbow, that's all, instead of a noose.

When anything gets freed, a zest goes round the world.