Literature is not a sack race. There aren't real winners and losers in the Republic of Letters.

[T]he astonishing purity of pain, how it will not be mixed with any other sensation.

When blame has been assigned, the story is over.

When you’re in love you don’t have to do a damn thing. You can just be. You can just stay quiet in the world. You don’t have to move an inch.

When I'm writing, I'm waiting to see somebody, and I'm waiting to hear them. It's almost like conjuring spirits out of the air, using your own imaginative instability.

My God, the corruptions of literature. It put all these notions into our heads.

When readers don't like the book, it's usually because they feel that romantic love is pass or somehow needs more irony.