Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.

All observations of life are harsh, because life is. I lament that fact, but I cannot change it.

Karen wasn't hard, she was soft, too soft. A soft touch. Her hair was soft, her smile was soft, her voice was soft. She was so soft there was no resistance. Hard things sank into her, they went right through her, and if she made a real effort, out the other side. Then she didn't have to see them or hear them, or even touch them.

Debt is part of the human condition. Civilization is based on exchanges - on gifts, trades, loans - and the revenges and insults that come when they are not paid back.

I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination. I firmly believe this.

Maybe sadness was a kind of hunger, she thought. Maybe the two went together.

We all know that a book is not really a person. It isn’t a human being. But if you are a lover of books as books – as objects, that is – and ignore the human element in them – that is, their voices – you will be committing an error of the soul, because you will be an idolator, or else a fetishist.