Stephan was secretive and a liar, but he was a very gentle and expert lover. She was the petted, cherished child, the desired mistress, the worshipped, perfumed goddess. She was all these things to Stephan - or so he made her believe.

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.

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.

One realized all sorts of things. The value of an illusion, for instance, and that the shadow can be more important than the substance. All sorts of things.

It's funny, he said, have you ever thought that a girl's clothes cost more than the girl inside them?

Everything tender and melancholy - as life is sometimes, just for one moment.

Only the magic and the dream are true — all the rest's a lie.