The kiss became the narrowed center of the still point of the turning world, so that even the park was turning in comparison to the still peace at their lips.

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.

I didn't hang around films. I don't know if I'd ever seen Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes.

He liked the fact that Venice had no cars. It made the city human. The streets were like veins, he thought, and the people were the blood, circulating everywhere.

It always gets late with you. - Is that a compliment?

January. It was all things. And it was one thing, like a solid door. Its cold sealed the city in a gray capsule. January was moments, and January was a year. January rained the moments down, and froze them in her memory: [...]Every human action seemed to yield a magic. January was a two-faced month, jangling like jester's bells, crackling like snow crust, pure as any beginning, grim as an old man, mysteriously familiar yet unknown, like a word one can almost but not quite define.

I can't write if someone else is in the house, not even the cleaning woman.