How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime.

one could drown in irrelevance.

Nothing that can be, can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes.

Above all, she wanted to look as though she had not given the matter a moment's thought, and that would take time.

I couldn't think about novels at all. It seemed the only writing that was appropriate to that horrendous event was journalism, reportage. And, in fact, I think the profession rose quite honorably to the task. Novelists require a slower turnover, I mean, in time.

I do have a very strong sense that most of the terrible things in life happen suddenly and unpredictably, and certainly can sweep you off in different directions, and that is always of interest to a novelist.

Nothing was to be lost by beginning at the beginning.