I hated historical novels with fluttering cloaks.

We shall all die, and our lives will be irrelevant then. If we make anything that lasts, it outlives us, and it outlives its personal moment. All of my work is deep-dug from me, and every book has to stand or fall without me.

Everyone thinks their own situation most tragic. I am no exception.

It's hard to remember that this day will never come again. That the time is now and the place is here and that there are no second chances at a single moment.

Time is a player. Time is part of today, not simply a measure of its passing.

Even death after a long illness is without warning. The moment you had prepared for so carefully took you by storm. The troops broke through the window and snatched the body and the body is gone. ... Death reduces us to the baffled logic of a small child. If yesterday why not today?

You know every cell in our bodies is completely renewed every seven years, so how can we talk about being the same person? We're absolutely not.