Actually, I enjoy the process of writing a big long novel.

One likes to think there's something in it, that old platitude amor vincit omnia. But if I've learned one thing in my short sad life, it is that that particular platitude is a lie. Love doesn't conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool.

I suppose the shock of recognition is one of the nastiest shocks of all.

To really be centered and to really work well and to think about the kinds of things that I need to think about, I need to spend large amounts of time 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.

Death is the mother of beauty,” said Henry. “And what is beauty?” “Terror.

All those layers of silence upon silence.