Madame....gloatingly savored her words as earlier she had savored her pig's trotter.

It just happened. As though a moment comes when it's both necessary and natural to make a decision that has long since been made.

I am at home everywhere, and nowhere. I am never a stranger and I never quite belong.

Trotsky rises to give me his hand, then sits at his desk, gently allowing his regard to light on my person.

Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. I don't think an artist can ever be happy.

We live in a time when writers do not always have barriers around them

We are all potentially characters in a novel--with the difference that characters in a novel really get to live their lives to the full.