The last three books are much more a case of a moment of history, what happened almost by accident or coincidence, like being in the same elevator or lifeboat.

I promised to tell you how one falls in love.

...sometimes we enter art to hide within it. It is where we can go to save ourselves, where a third-person voice protects us.

For echo is the soul of the voice exciting itself in hollow places.

Love is the use one makes of another.

Research can be a big clunker. It's difficult to know how you can make the historical light.

When I read biographies, I skip the first thirty pages about the childhood because it doesn't seem interesting to me.