There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I'd been treated by at least six of them. And married a seventh.

No one to blame! That was why most people led lives they hated, with people they hated. How wonderful to have someone to blame! How wonderful to live with one's nemesis! You may be miserable, but you feel forever in the right. You may be fragmented, but you feel absolved of all the blame for it. Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

the body is wiser than its inhabitants. the body is the soul. the body is god’s messenger.

Eating is never so simple as hunger.

the only people worth writing about are those about whom the last word cannot be said.

Friends love misery... our misery is what endears us to our friends.

Each artist or writer who works in Venice comes to believe that the city yields its most special secret to him or her alone.