But it's for every writer to decide his own pace, and the pace varies with the writer and the work

Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.

The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.

Children love secret club houses. They love secrecy even when there's no need for secrecy

I hope we're all ready to leave the phenomenal world, and enter into the sublime?

The first duty of the novelist is to entertain. It is a moral duty. People who read your books are sick, sad, traveling, in the hospital waiting room while someone is dying. Books are written by the alone for the alone.

And the flavor of Pippa's kiss--bittersweet and strange--stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.