The past is a room full of baggage and rubbish and sometimes things that are of use, but if they are of real use, I have kept them.

I've written a book about my mother, and I don't remember anyone going to Antigua or calling up my mother and verifying her life. There is something about this book that drives people mad with the autobiographical question.

The truth we have to face about the world we live in is that it's driven by profit, and contradictions and doubts are not profitable. They yield wisdom, but wisdom is not profitable. I find pleasure in doubt, but let's face it, my pleasure is not very profitable. To me, the truth is that things mean many things at once, and all of them opposed to each other, and all of them true.

Habit gives endurance, and fatigue is the best night cap.

Express everything you like. No word can hurt you. None. No idea can hurt you. Not being able to express an idea or word will hurt you more. Like a bullet.

In a way, a garden is the most useless of creations, the most slippery of creations: it is not like a painting or a piece of sculpture-it won't accrue value as time goes on. Time is its enemy' time passing is merely the countdown for the parting between garden and gardener.

The thing we call romance is a diversion from something truer, which is life.