When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write.

All of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is idiotic to be curious about the person.

Of course she had some pathetic illusions about herself or she would not be able to go on living.

The musty smell, the bugs, the lonliness, this room, which is part of the street outside-this is all I want from life.

...morbidly, attracted him to strangeness, to recklessnesss, even unhappiness.

Now at last I know why I was brought here and what I have to do.

I would never be part of anything. I would never really belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong, and failing. Always something would go wrong. I am a stranger and I always will be, and after all I didn’t really care.