What surprises you in life? The marvel of consciousness -- that sudden window swinging open on a sunlit landscape amidts the night of non-being.

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.

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." "this then is my story. i have reread it. it has bits of marrow sticking to it, and blood, and beautiful bright-green flies. at this or that twist of it i feel my slippery self eluding me, gliding into deeper and darker waters than i care to probe.

I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.

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.

A sense of security, of well-being, of summer warmth pervades my memory. That robust reality makes a ghost of the present. The mirror brims with brightness; a bumblebee has entered the room and bumps against the ceiling. Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.

I have never seen a more lucid, more lonely, better balanced mad mind than mine.