Creativity is on the side of health - it isn't the thing that drives us mad; it is the capacity in us that tries to save us from madness.

Perhaps all romance is like that; not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can find no outlet in everyday life. Only a drama will do and while the fireworks last the sky is a different colour.

Don't regret your life, child, it will pass soon enough.

Knowing that books are something that is hidden, that almost has that alchemical quality to it. There is a secret society in here, and if you belong to it, you'll be able to transform your lead into gold. I have that rather magical sense about books - that they do, somehow, have special powers.

Do you wake up as I do, having forgotten what it is that hurts or where, until you move? There is a second of consciousness that is clean again. A second that is you, without memory or experience, the animal warm and waking into a brand new world. There is the sun dissolving the dark, and light as clear as music, filling the room where you sleep and the other rooms behind your eyes.

My friends and the people who are close to me know what I am. And that is enough.

Every moment you steal from the present is a moment you've lost forever. There is only now.