All words are masks and the lovelier they are, the more they are meant to conceal.

I had thought that words were instruments of precision. Now I know that they devour the world, leaving nothing in its place.

All words are masks and the lovelier they are, the more they are meant to conceal.

I saw that I was in danger of becoming ordinary, and I understood that from now on I would have to be vigilant.

But what struck me was the book-madness of the place--books lay scattered across the unmade bed and the top of a battered-looking desk, books stood in knee-high piles on the floor, books were crammed sideways and right side up in a narrow bookcase that rose higher than my head and leaned dangerously from the wall, books sat in stacks on top of a dingy dresser. The closet door was propped open by a pile of books, and from beneath the bed a book stuck out beside the toe of a maroon slipper.

God pity the poor novelist.

Stories, like conjuring tricks, are invented because history is inadequate for our dreams.