I cannot live with someone who can't live without me.

If you live in Europe . . . things change . . . but continuity never seems to break. You don't have to throw the past away.

The country of the tourist pamphlet always is another country, an embarrassing abstraction of the desirable that, thank God, does not exist on this planet, where there are always ants and bad smells and empty Coca-Cola bottles to keep the grubby finger-print of reality upon the beautiful.

I never talk about what I'm writing about currently, never. It's private work on your own, no need or obligation to talk about it. Writers are made into performers these days, including myself, but there are some instances in which I will not perform.

As writers, we are exploring the mystery, the mystery of existence.

Writers themselves don't analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope.

it's impossible to conquer all fear and loss by preparation. There are always sources of desolation that aren't taken into account because no one knows what they will be.