I like to think that each book I start is a completely new departure But I’ve learned that whatever you do, readers will have no difficulty assimilating it into what you’ve done before.

Love doesn't grow at a steady rate, but advances in surges, bolts, wild leaps, and this was one of those.

Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art or bad faith can every quite cheapen. She repeated them, with exactly the same slight emphasis on the second word, as though she were the one to say them first. He had no religious belief, but it was impossible not to think of an invisible presence or witness in the room, and that these words spoken aloud were like signatures on an unseen contract.

In the first half of the 20th Century, we lived through human disasters on a scale unimaginable. The Holocaust was once suggested would be the end of not only civilization, but art, too.

Nothing was to be lost by beginning at the beginning.

He would work through the night and sleep until lunch. There wasn't really much else to do. Make something, and die.

I like to think that it isn't weakness or evasion, but a final act of kindness, a stand against oblivion and despair.