Some people are aware of everything that is going on everywhere at every moment in their lives.

I think I was born with the impression that what happened in books was much more reasonable, and interesting, and real, in some ways, than what happened in life.

No couple buying wedding rings wants to be reminded that someday one of them will have to accept the other one's ring from a nurse or an undertaker.

I never think about the actual process of writing. I suppose I have a superstition about examining it too closely.

Now peculiar scraps of knowledge were stuck to him like lint from all his jobs.

The very thing that attracts you to someone can end up putting you off.

...it's closeness that does you in. Never get too close to people, son.