Success consists in felicity of verbal expression, which every so often may result from a quick flash of inspiration but as a rule involves a patient search... for the sentence in which every word is unalterable.

The lives of individuals of the human race form a constant plot, in which every attempt to isolate one piece of living that has a meaning separate from the rest-for example, the meeting of two people, which will become decisive for both-must bear in mind that each of the two brings with himself a texture of events, environments, other people, and that from the meeting, in turn, other stories will be derived which will break off from their common story.

The more one was lost in unfamiliar quarters of distant cities, the more one understood the other cities he had crossed to arrive there.

Each sort of cheese reveals a pasture of a different green, under a different sky.

Every time I must find something to do that will look like something a little beyond my capabilities.

Biographical data, even those recorded in the public registers, are the most private things one has, and to declare them openly is rather like facing a psychoanalyst.

Writing always means hiding something in such a way that it then is discovered.