That afternoon my mother had brought me the roses. "Save them for my funeral," I'd said.

Slowly, slowly, catch the monkey.

I'm happier writing about doctors than I would have been being one.

…'It always has to end, doesn't it? We always have to separate.' 'Yes,' I said. He was insistent, 'But it doesn't always have to be that way. We could be together some day for always.' 'Oh, no,' I told him, wondering if he knew it was all over. 'We keep running till we die. We separate, get further apart, till we are dead.

Can a selfish egocentric jealous and unimaginative female write a damn thing worthwhile?

I saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of bright, white boxes, and separating one box from another was sleep, like a black shade. Only for me, the long perspective of shades that set off one box from the next day had suddenly snapped up, and I could see day after day after day glaring ahead of me like a white, broad, infinitely desolate avenue.

I do not fear it: I have been there.