Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great.

there are so many days when living stops and pulls up and sits and waits like a train on the rails.

The courage it took to get out of bed each morning to face the same things over and over was enormous.

…He was always high on drugs. I was not a drug man, but in case I wanted to hide from myself for a few days, I knew I could get anything I wanted from him.

magic persists without us no matter what we may do to try to spoil it

If I stop writing I am dead. And that's the only way I'll stop: dead.

Something that never happens anywhere at any time.