The short-story writer knows that he can't proceed cumulatively, that time is not his ally. His only solution is to work vertically, heading up or down in literary space.

As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you staked out in the middle of the courtyard. (...) You don't pick out the rain that soaks you to the skin when you come out of a concert.

All profound distraction opens certain doors. You have to allow yourself to be distracted when you are unable to concentrate.

Happy was she who could believe without seeing, who was at one with the duration and continuity of life.

(memory is) A strange echo, which stores its replicas according to some other acoustic than consciousness or expectation.

Wordplay hides a key to reality that the dictionary tries in vain to lock inside every free word.

The short-story writer knows that he can't proceed cumulatively, that time is not his ally. His only solution is to work vertically, heading up or down in literary space.