So the books for the Englishman, as he listened intently or not, had gaps of plot like sections of a road washed out by storms, missing incidents as if locusts had consumed a section of tapestry, as if plaster loosened by the bombing had fallen away from a mural at night.

Love is the use one makes of another.

Everyone has to scratch on walls somewhere or they go crazy

There is a story, always ahead of you. Barely existing. Only gradually do you attach yourself to it and feed it. You discover the carapace that will contain and test your character. You will find in this way the path of your life.

I thought I was being loved because I was being altered.

It's a responsibility of the writer to get the reader out of the story somehow.

When you're writing, it's as if you're within a kind of closed world.