Brilliant people never think of the lives they smash, being brilliant.

The greater the scientific advance, the more primitive the fear.

Writers, some of us, may tend to see things before other people do, things that are right there but aren't noticed in the way that a writer might notice.

It's my contention that each book creates its own structure and its own length. I've written three or four slim books. It may be that the next novel is a big one, but I don't know.

All human existence is a trick of light.

I felt myself getting whiter... What does it mean to become white? How does it feel to see Death in the flesh, come to gather you in?

It was the time of year, the time of day, for a small insistent sadness to pass into the texture of things. Dusk, silence, iron chill. Something lonely in the bone.