I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.

Quite like old times,' the room says.

that expression you get in your eyes when you are very tired and everything is like a dream and you are starting to know what things are like underneath what people say they are.

I must write. If I stop writing my life will have been an abject failure. It is that already to other people. But it could be an abject failure to myself. I will not have earned death.

I've been so ridiculous all my life that a little bit more or a little bit less hardly matters now.

The perpetual hunger to be beautiful and that thirst to be loved which is the real curse of Eve.

There is no doubt that running away on a fresh, blue morning can be exhilarating.