There was always a real reason for everything - why spoons tarnished, and jam furred, and people declined into God, or drink, or card games.

For me to write I have to be, a, alone, and b, know that nobody is going to question me. I write the way a thief steals; it's a little covert.

what makes us so afraid is the thing we half see, or half hear, as in a wood at dusk, when a tree stump becomes an animal and a sound becomes a siren. And most of that fear is the fear of not knowing, of not actually seeing correctly.

History is said to be written by the victors. Fiction, by contrast, is largely the work of injured bystanders.

... we have so many voices in us, how do we know which ones to obey?

Life, after all, was a secret with the self. The more one gave out, the less there remained for the center--that center which she coveted for herself and recognized instantly in others. Fruits had it, the very heart of, say, a cherry, where the true worth and flavor lay. Some of course were flawed or hollow in there. Many, in fact.

I was lonelier than I should be, for a woman in love, or half in love.