The future can always wait so long as the here-and-now is rapturous.

I was already at an age when putting off anything was a bad idea.

Desire is an appetite, quickly sated. Longing is a wound, an opening in the heart or the spirit. Whatever the cause, whatever the duration, it almost always leaves a scar.

And then they would watch her closely as the dark, coagulated masses took form before her eyes, became flesh and bone, became gradually human. For all their show of reluctance, she had a sense that they enjoyed introducing her to these horrors, as seducers took pleasure in the corruption of innocence.

One thing I knew about the novelist’s task: when in doubt, write; when empty, write; when afraid, write. Nothing is more impenetrable than the blank page. The blank page is the void, the absence of sense and feeling, the white light of literary death.

All writers are insecure, the male ones especially. It's well known. Why else would they spend so much time on make-believe? They're only happy in their imaginary worlds, because that's where they're in charge - where they're God. Did you know that Hemingway's mother dressed him as a girl until he was six years old?" I was not offended by Claudia's glib psychological theory. Like many glib psychological theories, it struck me as fundamentally correct.

One of the joys of being in love is that it clarifies your priorities. Complication arises from not knowing what you want.