I see you're looking at my cuff buttons." I hadn't been looking at them, but I did now.

They weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale---and yet they weren't unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

the best contacts are when one knows the obstacles and still wants to preserve a relation.

She admired him; she was used to clutching her hands together in his wake and heaving audible sighs.

The strongest guard is placed at the gateway to nothing. Maybe because the condition of emptiness is too shameful to be divulged.

Often I think writing is a sheer paring away of oneself leaving always something thinner, barer, more meagre.