I had made an empirical discovery and it carried all the weight of a mathematical proof.

Stories without endings can do nothing but go on forever, and to be caught in one means that you must die before your part in it is played out.

Reading, at the deepest level, is a physical experience. Most people are not attuned to this, most people don't learn how to read - poetry for example, or high-quality prose. They're used to reading magazines and newspapers, which are only of the mind, but not of the body.

I never would have thought of that word, "hospitality." I settle into the rhythm of my steps.

I guess the toughest things in translations are word play, which can never be reproduced exactly.

I have difficulty orienting myself in space, and I'm probably one of the few people who gets lost in Manhattan.

I've written books that have taken me fifteen years, from first sentence to last, and some that only take three or four months.