A man is not much if he can't depend on himself, and nothing if others can't depend on him.

All I wanted was to be left alone. They abhor a vacuum, other people. You find a quiet corner where you can hunker down in peace, and the next minute there they are, crowding around you in their party hats, tooting their paper whistles in your face and insisting you get up and join in the knees-up.

No two things the same, the equals sign a scandal.

Art is amoral, whether we accept this or not; it does not take sides. The finest fictions are cold at heart.

All my life I have lied. I lied to escape, I lied to be loved, I lied for placement and power; I lied to lie. It was a way of living; lies are life's almost-anagram.

Enormous morning, ponderous, meticulous; gray light streaking each bare branch, each single twig, along one side, making another tree, of glassy veins.

Perhaps all of life is no more than a long preparation for the leaving of it.