If asked to list my ten favorite American fiction writers, Gail Godwin would be among them. In this, her latest . . . she evokes in a short book the long married life of two artists. Evenings at Five is a strong tale of love-after-death.

Art's the biggest vanity: the assumption that one's view of peace or fright or beauty is permanently communicable.

If a composer could state in words what being a composer means, he would no longer need to be a composer.

The same piece of music alters at each hearing. But oh, the need to repeat and repeat and repeat unchanged the sexual experience.

Intelligence is silence, truth is being invisible. But what a racket I make in declaring this.

If music could be translated into human speech, it would no longer need to exist.

All men are forced into one of two categories: those with eleven fingers and those without.