Novels tell us the most truth about life: what it is, how we live it, what it might be for, how we enjoy and value it, and how we lose it.

When we fall in love, we hope - both egotistically and altruistically - that we shall be finally, truly seen: judged and approved. Of course, love does not always bring approval: being seen may just as well lead to a thumbs-down and a season in hell.

We live with such easy assumptions, don't we? For instance, that memory equals events plus time. But it's all much odder than this. Who was it said that memory is what we thought we'd forgotten? And it ought to be obvious to us that time doesn't act as a fixative, rather as a solvent. But it's not convenient--- it's not useful--- to believe this; it doesn't help us get on with our lives; so we ignore it.

Well, they each seem to do one thing well enough, but fail to realize that literature depends on doing several things well at the same time.

Wisdom consists partly in not pretending anymore, in discarding artifice.

Yes, of course we were pretentious -- what else is youth for?

When you are writing fiction your task is to reflect the fullest complications of the world