Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.

To remain pure, a novel has to cast a moral puzzle. Anything else is mere negotiation.

In real life, it is the hare who wins. Every time. Look around you. And in any case it is my contention that Aesop was writing for the tortoise market. Hares have no time to read. They are too busy winning the game.

Like many rich men, he thought in anecdotes; like many simple women, she thought in terms of biography.

One loses the capacity to grieve as a child grieves, or to rage as a child rages: hotly, despairingly, with tears of passion. One grows up, one becomes civilized, one learns one's manners, and consequently can no longer manage these two functions - sorrow and anger - adequately.

Time misspent in youth is sometimes all the freedom one ever has.

Accountability in friendship is the equivalent of love without strategy.