I don't think jealousy has much of a connection with real, objective conditions. Like if you're fortunate you're not jealous, but if life hasn't blessed you, you are jealous. Jealousy doesn't work that way. It's more like a tumor secretly growing inside us that gets bigger and bigger, beyond all reason. Even if you find out it's there, there's nothing you can do to stop it.

It was a small room with dim light coming in the window, reminiscent of old Polish films.

I don't know -- maybe the world has two different kinds of people, and for one kind the world is this completely logical, rice pudding place, and for the other it's all hit-or-miss macaroni gratin.

Become like a sheet of blotting paper and soak it all in. Later on you can figure out what to keep and what to unload.

The ground we stand on looks solid enough, but if something happens it can drop right out from under you.

I generally concentrate on work for three or four hours every morning. I sit at my desk and focus totally on what I’m writing. I don’t see anything else, I don’t think about anything else.

The fresh smell of coffee soon wafted through the apartment, the smell that separates night from day.