I have learned that a man has the right and obligation to look down at another man, only when that man needs help to get up from the ground.

It's enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.

The woman let out an expansive laugh that resounded through the house like a spray of broken glass.

Both looked back then on the wild revelry...and they lamented that it had cost them so much of their lives to find the paradise of shared solitude.

Her heart of compressed ash, which had resisted the most telling blows of daily reality without strain, fell apart with the first waves of nostalgia.

There's no greater misfortune than dying alone.

I think that the idea that I'm writing for many more people than I ever imagined has created a certain general responsibility that is literary and political. There's even pride involved, in not wanting to fall short of what I did before.