I could have been a cult writer if I'd kept writing surrealistic novels. But I wanted to break into the mainstream, so I had to prove that I could write a realistic book.

One listless day followed another, with nothing to distinguish one from the next. You could have changed the order and no one would have noticed.

Mental acuity was never born from comfortable circumstances.

People lose fifty million skin cells every day. The cells get scraped off and turn into invisible dust, and disappear into the air. Maybe we are nothing but skin cells as far as the world is concerned.

Many are the women who can take their clothes off seductively, but women who can charm as they dress?

Her smile steps offstage for a moment, then does an encore, all while I'm dealing with my blushing face.

Age certainly hadn't conferred any smarts on me. Character maybe, but mediocrity is a constant, as one Russian writer put it. Russian writers have a way with aphorisms. They probably spend all winter thinking them up.