If they substituted the word 'Lust' for 'Love' in the popular songs it would come nearer the truth.

I think if I had done anything else I would like to have been a doctor. This is the sort of polar opposition to being a writer, I suppose.

I thought the most beautiful thing in the world must be shadow, the million moving shapes and cul-de-sacs of shadow. There was shadow in bureau drawers and closets and suitcases, and shadow under houses and trees and stones, and shadow at the back of people's eyes and smiles, and shadow, miles and miles and miles of it, on the night side of the earth.

I can't be satisfied with the colossal job of merely living.

If they substituted the word 'Lust' for 'Love' in the popular songs it would come nearer the truth.

I have this demon who wants me to run away screaming if I am going to be flawed, fallible. It wants me to think I'm so good I must be perfect. Or nothing. I am, on the contrary, something: a being who gets tired, has shyness to fight, has more trouble than most facing people easily.

It was my first big chance, but here I was, sitting back and letting it run through my fingers like so much water.