Except for memory, time would have no meaning at all.

One can learn anything, anything at all, I thought, if provided by a gifted and passionate teacher.

The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave

When men talk about the agony of being men, they can never quite get away from the recurrent theme of self-pity. And when women talk about being women, they can never quite get away from the recurrent theme of blaming men.

I could bear the memory, but I could not bear the music that made the memory such a killing thing.

I've always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position.

I don't believe in happy families.