the process of reading is reciprocal; the book is no more than a formula, to be furnished out with images out of the reader's mind.

The silence of a shut park does not sound like country silence: it is tense and confined.

Darling, I don't want you; I've got no place for you; I only want what you give. I don't want the whole of anyone.... What you want is the whole of me-isn't it, isn't it?-and the whole of me isn't there for anybody. In that full sense you want me I don't exist.

I know that I have in my make-up layers of synthetic experiences, and that the most powerful of my memories are only half true.

If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.

Good-byes breed a sort of distaste for whomever you say good-bye to; this hurts, you feel, this must not happen again.

Plot is the knowing of destination.