I have always espoused chastity except when one can no longer resist the temptation.

Ideally I'd like to spend two evenings a week talking to Proust and another conversing with the Holy Ghost.

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.

Books everywhere. On the shelves and on the small space above the rows of books and all along the floor and under chairs, books that I have read, books that I have not read.

Death in its way comes just as much of a surprise as birth.

She said the reason that love is so painful is that it always amounts to two people wanting more than two people can give.

Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither, then it goes deep, deep down into its burrow, where no one sees it, where it is lost from sight, and ultimately people die with that secret buried inside their souls.