I would rather dance as a ballerina, though faultily, than as a flawless clown.

Although from you I far must roam, do not be broken hearted. We two, who in the souls are one, are never truly parted.

... all this talking, this rather liquid confessing, was something I didn't think I could ever bring myself to do. It seemed foolhardy to me, like an uncooked egg deciding to to come out of its shell: there would be a risk of spreading out too far, turning into a formless puddle.

at last you, will say (maybe without speaking) (there are mountains inside your skull garden and chaos, ocean and hurricane; certain corners of rooms, portraits of great-grandmothers, curtains of a particular shade; your deserts; your private dinosaurs; the first woman) all i need to know: tell me everything just as it was from the beginning.

All writers must go from now to once a upon a time; all must go from here to there; all must descend to where the stories are kept; all must take care not to be captured and held immobile by the past.

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

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.