The love of form is a love of endings.

What was difficult was the travel, which, on arrival, is forgotten.

Balm of the summer night, balm of the ordinary, imperial joy and sorrow of human existence, the dreamed as well as the lived— what could be dearer than this, given the closeness of death?

As I saw it, all my mother's life, my father held her down, like lead strapped to her ankles. She was buoyant by nature; she wanted to travel, go to the theater, go to museums. What he wanted was to lie on the couch with the Times over his face, so that death, when it came, wouldn't seem a significant change.

I had nothing and I was still changed. Like a costume, my numbness was taken away. Then hunger was added.

At first I saw you everywhere. Now only in certain things, at longer intervals.

Birth, not death, is the hard loss.