Alone, she took hot baths and sat exhausted in the steaming water, wondering at her perpetual exhaustion. All that winter she noticed the limp, languid weight of her arms, her veins bulging slightly with the pressure of her extreme weariness ... one day in January she drew a razor blade lightly across the inside of her arm, near the elbow, to see what would happen.

Every scar in my face is worth it.

A writer’s life is in his work, and that is the place to find him.

The greatest works of literature seem to embody both "art" and "morality".

Most people think that a widow is inhabiting some elegiac world of - it's like Mozart's 'Requiem Mass.' You know, it's very beautiful and elevated thoughts and some measure of dignity. I didn't have that experience at all. I had one pratfall after another.

Critics sometimes appear to be addressing themselves to works other than those I remember writing.

Writing is a consequence of having been 'haunted' by material. Why this is, no one knows.