And what is death, if not a face at peace - its artistic perfection.

Devices which in some curious new way imitate nature are attractive to simple minds.

But that mimosa grove-the haze of stars, the tingle, the flame, the honey-dew, and the ache remained with me, and that little girl with her seaside limbs and ardent tongue haunted me ever since-until at last, twenty-four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another.

Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it.

At eight, he had once told his mother that he wanted to paint air.

Turning one's novel into a movie script is rather like making a series of sketches for a painting that has long ago been finished and framed.

Nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring.