I'm surrounded by young people. I'm always now the oldest and the shortest person in the room.

A book is not an end in itself; it is only a way to touch someone - a bridge extended across a space of loneliness and obscurity - and sometimes it is a way of winning other people to our causes.

The one that came really easy was the Japanese lover, because he's like a ghost in the book. He's always in the background like a spirit, like a shadow, almost. There's a very delicate line there.

After fifty most of the bullshit is gone.

You are my angel and my damnation; in your presence I reach divine ecstasy and in your absence I descent to hell.

I'm not willing to sign a contract. They want everything. They want the rights to do the movie and everything else they can think of, forever. There's no limit to the contract. In this universe and universes to be discovered - I'm not making this up - this is in the contract.

Affection is like the noonday sun; it does not need the presence of another to be manifest.