He would conclude that nothing was real except chance.

I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed some breathing room. I'd already been translating French poetry, I'd been to Paris once before and liked it very much, and so I just went.

For one reason or another, I became a passionate reader when I was very little. As soon as I could read, I wanted to read.

All through my writing life I've had this impulse to write autobiographical works.

Something happens, Blue thinks, and then it goes on happening forever. It can never be changed, can never be otherwise.

Every man is the author of his own life.

Writing is such a strange, utterly mysterious process. First, there was nothing; then, suddenly, there was something. I don't know where thoughts are born. Where the hell does it come from? I don't know. I really don't know.