Knowing that something is wrong and doing it anyway happens very often in life, and I doubt I will ever know why.

When you start reading nonfiction books about piracy, you realize that it's actually just a history of desperate people.

Members of your family might say they are working hard all day long, while you are off at school or clarinet lessons, but the only way to know this for sure is to follow them at a discreet distance.

I stand entwined in fire on the inextinguishable bonfire of inconceivable love.

For obvious reasons, I never told you about my notebook, with a cover as green as mansions long ago, which I use as a commonplace book, a phrase which here means 'place where I have collected passages from some of the most important books I have read.

I met [my editor] in a bar where alcoholic beverages are served and I bought her one and I told her the idea. And she said that she liked it very much, which embarrassed me because I thought it meant that she was a lightweight and that in the morning, as so many women say to so many men, what seems like a good idea, you know, turns out not to be.

...there's nothing wrong with occasionally staring out the window and thinking nonsense, as long as the nonsense is yours.