Against the sustained tick of a watch, fiction takes the measure of a life, a season, a look exchanged, the turning point, desire as brief as a dream, the grief and terror that after childhood we cease to express.

All lives are interesting; no one life is more interesting than another. Its fascination depends on how much is revealed, and in what manner.

A writer's life stands in relation to his work as a house does to a garden, related but distinct.

She and Marie were Montreal girls, not trained to accompany heroes, or to hold out for dreams, but just to be patient.

I believed that if I was to call myself a writer, I should live on writing. If I could not live on it, even simply, I should destroy every scrap, every trace, every notebook and live some other way.

[My father] had spent his own short time like a priest in charge of a relic, forever expecting the blessed blood to liquefy.

Success can only be measured in terms of distance traveled.