Some travelers think they want to go to foreign places but are dismayed when the places turn out actually to be foreign.

Once upon a time, novelists of the 19th century, such as Charles Dickens, published in serial form.

When I was sixteen, it was simple. Poetry existed; therefore it could be written; and nobody had told me — yet — the many, many reasons why it could not be written by me.

The prospect of his future life stretched before him like a sentence; not a prison sentence but a long-winded sentence with a lot of unnecessary subordinate clauses, as he was soon in the habit of quipping during Happy Hour pickup time at the local campus bars and pubs. He couldn’t say he was looking forward to it, this rest-of-his-life.

Writing... is an act of faith: I believe it's also an act of hope, the hope that things can get better than they are.

To live in prison is to live without mirrors. To live without mirrors is to live without the self. She is living selflessly, she finds a hole in the stone wall and on the other side of the wall, a voice. The voice comes through darkness and has no face. This voice becomes her mirror.

He was deciding whether to cut her throat or love her forever.