There are things that happen and leave no discernible trace, are not spoken or written of, though it would be very wrong to say that subsequent events go on indifferently, all the same, as though such things had never been.

Never stop paying attention to things. Never make your mind up finally. Do not hold beliefs.

A beautiful woman, Simone Weil said, seeing herself in the mirror, knows "This is I." An ugly woman knows with equal certainty, "This is not I." Maud knew this neat division represented an over-simplification. The doll-mask she saw had nothing to do with her, nothing.

I don't think it is an easy thing to write and expect to be commercial, even if you are from Venus and a hermaphrodite.

Novels arise out of the shortcomings of History.

Vocabularies are crossing circles and loops. We are defined by the lines we choose to cross or to be confined by.

I worry about anthropomorphism as a form of self-deception. (The Christian religion is an anthropomorphic account of the universe.)