Two people making love, she once said, are like one drowned person resuscitating the other.

The tension between 'yes' and no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot,' makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

The more I like a book, the more reluctant I am to turn the page. Lovers, even book lovers, tend to cling. No one-night stands or "reads" for them.

Ruefulness is one of the classical tones of American fiction. It fosters a native, deglamorized form of anxiety.

Paranoids are the only ones who notice things anymore.

If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it's great, it should be read at least three times.

Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one's own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live. There is in men, as Peter Quennell said, "a centrifugal tendency." In our wanderlust, we are lovers looking for consummation.