You can’t put much on paper before you betray your secret self, try as you will to keep things civil.

Writing about why you write is a funny business, like scratching what doesn't itch. Impulses are mysterious, and explaining them must be done with mirrors, like certain cunning slight-of-hand routines.

Here, in memory, we live and die.

French was the only language we had in common, and even that was like a dialect we had picked up at a rummage sale, rusty and missing a lot of essential parts.

In memory each of us is an artist: each of us creates.

People come and go in life, but they never leave your dreams. Once they're in your subconscious, they are immortal.

Maybe being oneself is always an acquired taste.