To read a novel is to wonder constantly, even at moments when we lose ourselves most deeply in the book: How much of this is fantasy, and how much is real?

In the mornings I used to say goodbye to my wife like someone going to work. I'd leave the house, walk around a few blocks, and come back like a person arriving at the office.

Clocks and calendars do not exist to remind us of the Time we've forgotten but to regulate our relations with others and indeed all of society, and this is how we use them.

When you love a city and have explored it frequently on foot, your body, not to mention your soul, gets to know the streets so well after a number of years that in a fit of melancholy, perhaps stirred by a light snow falling ever so sorrowfully, you'll discover your legs carrying you of their own accord toward one of your favourite promontories

I think a lot about the poems I wasn't able to write...I masturbrated...Solitude is essentially a matter of pride; you bury yourself in your own scent. The issue is the same for all real poets. If you've been happy for too long, you become banal. By the same token, if you've been unhappy for a long time, you lose your poetic power...Happiness and poverty can only coexist for the briefest time. Afterword either happiness coarsens the poet or the poem is so true it destroys his happiness.

Oscar Wilde always makes me smile - with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wildes books in a bookshop makes me smile.

Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow.