He was becoming unstuck, he was sure of that - his bones were no longer wrapped in flesh but in clouds of dust, in hummingbirds, dragonflies, and luminous moths - but so perfect was his equilibrium that he felt no fear. He was vast, he was many, he was dynamic, he was eternal.

To achieve the impossible; it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.

Now that I'm in love, I haven't a clue. Now that I'm in love, I'm completely stupid on the subject.

At birth, we emerge from dream soup. At death, we sink back into dream soup. In between soups, there is a crossing of dry land. Life is a portage.

The pervasive brutality in current fiction - the death, disease, dysfunction, depression, dismemberment, drug addiction, dementia, and dreary little dramas of domestic discord - is an obvious example of how language in exploitative, cynical or simply neurotic hands can add to the weariness, the darkness in the world.

And it rained a fever. And it rained a silence. And it rained a sacrifice. And it rained a miracle. And it rained sorceries and saturnine eyes of the totem.

Very few people can write in a crowd. This is a very solitary occupation. I have known people more talented than me who never made it. And the primary reason was always that they couldn't stand to be alone for several hours a day. Any writer worth anything has mastered the art. The art of solitude.