Detachment is what interests me, seeing how people couldn't have been any other way, how they were the product of forces that they had no control over.

No pain is too small if it hurts, but any pain is too big if it's cherished.

It's no use imagining that bringing great writers together inevitably precipitates great conversation.

Surely: the adverb of a man without an argument.

Everything was usual. That was depression: being stuck, clinging to an out-of-date version of oneself.

The first book I fell in love with was 'Little Toot,' the story of an adorable tugboat operating out of New York Harbor.

Proust is a hero of mine. I read 'A la recherche' in one go, and I'm a very slow reader. It had an astonishing impact, reading it on my own and being my main company. I think Proust is the most intelligent person to ever have written a novel.