I am always reading or thinking about reading.

I am the presence standing here at this juncture of Time & Space- who else?

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

Each genre exerts a considerable spell, as a kind of "form" to be filled, as a Shakespearean sonnet is filled.

Often in gothic novels there's a large house, an estate, and it's symbolic of that culture. Usually it's sort of moldering or rotted or something, and sometimes it's a whole community.

He was ugly, himself. Weird-ugly. But ugliness in a man doesn't matter, much. Ugliness in a woman is her life.

Yet I will make you all love me and I will punish myself to spite your love.