The first person you should think of pleasing, in writing a book, is yourself. If you can amuse yourself for the length of time it takes to write a book, the publisher and the readers can and will come later.

Anticipation! It occurred to him that his anticipation was more pleasant to him than the experiencing.

Then Carol slipped her arm under her neck, and all the length of their bodies touched fitting as if something had prearranged it. Happiness was like a green vine spreading through her, stretching fine tendrils, bearing flowers through her flesh. She had a vision of a pale white flower, shimmering as if seen in darkness, or through water. Why did people talk of heaven, she wondered

And no book, and possibly no painting, when it is finished, is ever exactly like the first dream of it.

The night was a time for bestial affinities, for drawing closer to oneself.

When I am thickening my plots, I like to think 'What if ... What if ... ' Thus my imagination can move from the likely, which everyone can think of, to the unlikely-but-possible, my preferred plot.

Everything human is alien to me.