As you know, human history is full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination.

In those days, I still thoroughly enjoyed the romance I called "by myself"; I didn't know yet how it gets lonely, picks up a sharp edge later on that ruins a day now and then-- ruins more than that, if you're not careful.

Every writer hopes his or her book will be its own thing.

Festina Lente (Hurry in slowly)

Today I will go to wait for her again, because I cannot help it, because my whole being seems now to be bound up in the being of one so different from myself and yet so exquisitely familiar that I can scarely understand what has happened.

It was strange, I reflected.. that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one's life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy.

My guess is that he remembers some of me, some of us together, and the rest rolled off him like topsoil in a flash flood.