If I'm not working, I'm not happy. That's it. That's the prerequisite for me for happiness.

Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.

Any action, in the fullness of time, sinks to nothingness.

I believe, in a funny way, the job of the novelist is to be out there on the fringes and speaking for an experience that has not really been spoken for.

Still when I lost her, I lost sight of any landmark that might have led me someplace happier, to some more populated or congenial life.

Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I consider the time well-spent

For if the modern mind is whimsical and discursive, the classical mind is narrow, unhesitating, relentless. It is not a quality of intelligence that one encounters frequently these days. But though I can digress with the best of them, I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.