I just want some space to myself every now and then. Every time I’m with you I have this sense that you want something from me.

Do you remember? When the fights seemed to go on and on, and always ended with us in bed, tearing at each other like maybe that could change everything. In a couple of months you'd be seeing somebody else and I would too; she was no darker than you but she washed her panties in the shower and had hair like a sea of little punos and the first time you saw us, you turned around and boarded a bus I knew you didn't have to take. When my girl said, Who was that? I said, Just some girl.

The thoughts he put in her head. Someone should’ve arrested him for it.

I think that if you're writing about the human condition, my God, you've got to start at base: point zero, point one, is the body.

I never wanted to be away from the family. Intuitively, I knew how easily distances could harden and become permanent.

The thing is - do we really need another writer who writes a book every eighteen months, whether the quality is wonderful or not? I mean, maybe. But I can name twenty off the top of my head who do it. Maybe what we need is a writer like me who goes very slow, as well.

...one of those very bad men that not even postmodernism can explain away.