Life is fragmentary, and the pattern that creativity can offer is not one that is imposed, not something rigid, but rather something which can reveal the intrinsic patterns of that fragmentation. Things are in a perpetual dance, but there is an order. It's not really random at all.

Words like passion and ecstasy, we learn them but they stay flat on the page. Sometimes we try to turn them over, find out what's on the other side, and everyone has a story to tell os a woman or a brothel or an opium night or a war. We fear it. We fear passion and laugh at too much love and those who love too much.

I don't own my emotions unless I can think about them. I am not afraid of feeling but I am afraid of feeling unthinkingly. I don't want to drown. My head is my heart's lifebelt.

When I fell in love it was as though I looked into a mirror for the first time and saw myself.

Whether you want to call it God or the mystery of the cosmos doesn't matter to me.

A character has a distinctive voice - you should be able to hear them in your head and conduct a conversation with them while you're out walking. If the answers surprise you, you know it's the character speaking and not you.

There’s no story that’s the start of itself.