For myself, the only way I know how to make a book is to construct it like a collage: a bit of dialogue here, a scrap of narrative, an isolated description of a common object, an elaborate running metaphor which threads between the sequences and holds different narrative lines together.

As Danton sees it, the most bizarre aspect of Camille's character is his desire to scribble over every blank surface; he sees a guileless piece of paper, virgin and harmless, and persecutes it till it is black with words, and then besmirches its sister, and so on, through the quire.

At New Year's he had given Anne a present of silver forks with handles of rock crystal. He hopes she will use them to eat with, not to stick in people.

Insight cannot be taken back. You cannot return to the moment you were in before.

[H]ope takes you by the throat like a stranger, it makes your heart leap.

A novel should be a book of questions, not a book of answers.

As a writer, you owe it to yourself not to get stuck in a rut of looking at the world in a certain way.