We're here, there, not here, not there, swirling like specks of dust, claiming for ourselves the rights of the universe. Being important, being nothing, being caught in lives of our own making that we never wanted. Breaking out, trying again, wondering why the past comes with us, wondering how to talk about the past at all.

Academics love to make theories about a body of work, but each book consumes the writer and is the sum of his or her world.

I think writing is a process that starts long before the writers are actually writers and probably goes on long afterward. It's rather like the way the Arabs weave rugs. They don't stop. They just cut them off at a certain spot on the loom. There is no particular beginning or end.

To me, these days will never end. I am always there, in that room with her, or if not I, the imprint of myself - my fossil-love

The truth is that love smashes into your life like an ice floe, and even if your heart is built like the Titanic you go down.

They believed that if a mouse found your hair clippings and built a nest with them you got a headache. If the nest was big enough, you might go mad.

What's invisible to us is also crucial for our own well-being.