The world is in balance . To light a candle is to cast a shadow.

In general she had found that the main drawback in being a man was that conversations were less interesting.

The model of modern Western civilization is the virus: the pure bit of information, which turns its environment into endless reproductions of itself.

Translation is entirely mysterious. Increasingly I have felt that the art of writing is itself translating, or more like translating than it is like anything else

To be oneself is a rare thing, and a great one.

A writer either speaks to adults and bores kids, or speaks to kids and upsets adults.

My soul is ten thousand miles wide and extremely invisibly deep. It is the same size as the sea, and you cannot, you cannot cram it into beer cans and fingernails and stake it out in lots and own it. It will drown you all and never even notice.