All my life I had feared imprisonment, the nun's cell, the hospital bed, the places where one faced the self without distraction, without the crutches of other people.

The other me, who did not mean to drown herself, went under the sea and remained there for a long time. Eventually she surfaced near Japan and people gave her gifts but she had been so long under the sea she did not recognize what they were. She is a sly one. Mostly at night we commune. Night. Harbinger of dream and nightmare and bearer of omens which defy the music of words. In the morning the fear of her going is very real and very alarming. It can make one tremble. Not that she cares. She is the muse. I am the messenger.

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

I have some women friends but I prefer men. Dont trust women. There is a built-in competition between women.

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.

jealousy is the direct result of self-betrayal.

Countries are either mothers or fathers, and engender the emotional bristle secretly reserved for either sire.