Never worry about being obsessive. I like obsessive people. Obsessive people make great art

Decline of the letter, the rise of the notebook! One doesn't write to others any more; one writes to oneself.

No 'we' should be taken for granted when the subject is looking at other people's pain.

[On marriage:] It is an institution committed to the dulling of the feelings.

But when we are nostalgic, we take pictures

writers are makers, not just transmitters, of myths. Literature offers not only myths but counter-myths, just as life offers counter-experiences - experiences that confound what you thought you thought, or felt, or believed.

Life is a movie; death is a photograph.