The door of the novel, like the door of the poem, also shuts. But not so fast, nor with such manic, unanswerable finality.

I tried to speak in a cool, calm way, but the zombie rose up in my throat and choked me off.

If I have a dry spell ... I wait and live harder, eyes, ears, and heart open, and when the productive time comes, it is that much richer.

The moon, too, abases her subjects, but in the daytime she is ridiculous. Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand, arrive through the mailslot with loving regularity, white and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide. No day is safe from news of you, walking about in Africa maybe, but thinking of me.

With me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. This second is life. And when it is gone it is dead. But you can't start over with each new second. You have to judge by what is dead. It's like quicksand... hopeless from the start.

Aloneness and selfness are too important to betray for company.

I must not be selfless: develop a sense of self. A solidness that can't be attacked.