Ultimately, we measure ourselves against our own ideas of idealism and perfection, and we don't always come very close to them.

People have libraries at home, they have bookshelves, they have CDs. And they sort of try, people try to bring great artists into their lives, into their physical houses and sort of live with portions of them. But they're not really deeply engaging with them.

You are writing for your contemporaries - not for Posterity. If you are lucky, your contemporaries will become Posterity.

People might be surprised to know how much I throw away. For every page I publish, I throw 10 pages away.

Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat.

I don't know whether I am different from other people. Perhaps I am. Perhaps no one has a personality, and people are inventing themselves in the context in which they find themselves.

The institution of marriage is just formalizing an emotion, an attempt to make it seem permanent. The emotion will last or it won't last; nothing can guarantee it.