The literary scene is a kind of Medusa’s raft, small and sinking, and one’s instinct when a newcomer tries to clamber aboard is to step on his fingers.

From infancy on, we are all spies; the shame is not this but that the secrets to be discovered are so paltry and few.

We all begin life as parasites within the mother, and writers begin their existence imitatively, within the body of letters.

If you have the guts to be yourself, other people'll pay your price.

Customs and convictions change; respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art.

In memory's telephoto lens, far objects are magnified.

Not judginess, but openness and curiosity are our proper business. I'm still trying to educate myself. I don't think you need to keep rehearsing your instincts. Far better to seek out models of what you can't do.