I want to just be lazy and I want some of the people around me to be doing things, because that makes me feel comfortable and safe - and I want some of them to be doing nothing at all, because they can be graceful and companionable for me.

mother says that two souls are sometimes created together and--and in love before they're born.

A writer like me must have an utter confidence, an utter faith in his star. It's an almost mystical feeling, a feeling of nothing-can-happen-to me, nothing-can-touch-me.... I once had it. But through a series of blows, many of them my own fault, something happened to that sense of immunity and I lost my grip.

The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun.

I've been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.

He had angered Providence by resisting too many temptations. There was nothing left but heaven, where he would meet only those who, like him, had wasted earth.

Nobody ever became a writer just by wanting to be one.