The telephone ringing gave me a dreadful start. I have never got used to this machine, the way it crouches so malevolently, ready to start clamouring for attention when you least expect it, like a mad baby.

Life is tragic but it's equally comic.

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

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

I would be far more critical than any reviewer could be of my own work. So I simply don't read them.

I'm a hopeless 19th-century romantic.

The past beats inside me like a second heart.