After love a formal feeling comes.

The heavenly light you admire is fossil-light, it's the unfathomably distant past you gaze into, stars long extinct

Probably nothing serious or worthwhile can be accomplished without one's willingness to be alone for sustained periods of time, which is not to say that one must live alone, obsessively.

To claim - to claim repeatedly - that you are innocent of what it is claimed by others that you have done, or might have done, or are in some quarters strongly suspected of having done, is never enough unless others, numerous others, will say it for you.

The novel is perhaps the highest art form because it so closely resembles life: it is about human relationships. It's technique, page by page, resembles our technique of living day by day-a way of relating.

We are the species that clamors to be lied to.

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