Anything that is given can be at once taken away. We have to learn never to expect anything, and when it comes it's no more than a gift on loan.

I've never written anything that hasn't been in my mind for a long time - seven or eight years.

I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.

When I was in my 20s it did occur to me that there was something perverted about an attitude that thought that killing somebody was a minor offence compared to kissing somebody.

The imagination demands that life be told slant because of its need of distance.

When you're in danger of losing a thing it becomes precious and when it's around us, it's in tedious abundance and we take it for granted as if we're going to live forever, which we're not.

I feel I grew up in a different century than I live in. I think most of them are changes for the good.