Looking after children can be a subtle way of giving up... They become the whole ones, the well ones, the postponement of happiness, the ones who won't drink too much, give up, get divorced, become mentally ill. The part of oneself that's fighting against decay and depression is transferred to guarding them from decay and depression. In the meantime one decays and gets depressed.

It seems people spend the majority of their lives believing they're dying, with the only consolation being that at one point they get to be right.

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.

I'm really not responsible for what mental operation people have when they're reading my books other than the ones which are created by literary effects.

I'm not trying to uncover the facts of my life but to discover the dramatic truth of the situations I was in.

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

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