One is always changing. I don't want to write the same book and I couldn't, because I'm a different person.

He wondered if what he had taken for the richness of silence was really the poverty of never being heard [...]. How could he have forgotten what he had always known: there is no match for the silence of God.

I like to think the world wasn't ready for me, but maybe the truth is that I wasn't ready for the world. I've always arrived too late for my life.

It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.

I have always written about characters who fall somewhere in the spectrum between solitary and totally alienated.

THE DEATH OF LEOPOLD GURSKY Leopold Gursky started dying on August 18, 1920. He died learning to walk. He died standing at the blackboard. And once, also, carrying a heavy tray. He died practicing a new way to sign his name. Opening a window. Washing his genitals in the bath. He died alone, because he was too embarrassed to phone anyone. Or he died thinking about Alma. Or when he chose not to.

If it weren't for her, there would never have been an empty space, or the need to fill it.