My only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me-to give the mundane its beautiful due.

Life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews.

It's a man's world, they say; but in its daily textures it is a world created by and for women.

The great thing about the dead, they make space.

To say that war is madness is like saying that sex is madness: true enough, from the standpoint of a stateless eunuch, but merely a provocative epigram for those who must make their arrangements in the world as given.

Nothing feels worse than other people's good times.

Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self- solitude is the enemy of well- being.