Like a tropical storm, I, too, may one day become ‘better organized.

the translator, a lonely sort of acrobat, becomes confused in a labyrinth of paradox, or climbs a pyramid of dependent clauses and has to invent a way down from it in his own language.

Part of my mind is working on how to end the thing while I'm going on. You need at least two brains to write.

We feel an affinity with a certain thinker because we agree with him; or because he shows us what we were already thinking; or because he shows us in a more articulate form what we were already thinking; or because he shows us what we were on the point of thinking; or what we would sooner or later have thought; or what we would have thought much later if we hadn’t read it now; or what we would have been likely to think but never would have thought if we hadn’t read it now; or what we would have liked to think but never would have thought if we hadn’t read it now.

Why don't you like the foods I like?" he asks sometimes. "Why don't you like the foods I make?" I answer.

I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings, and I don’t like to knock other writers as a matter of principle.

My stories are sometimes closer to poems or meditations, but often there is at least a little narrative in them.