I feel like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth.

Perhaps they were right putting love into books. Perhaps it could not live anywhere else.

The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with.

I could smell the curves of the river beyond the dusk and I saw the last light supine and tranquil upon tideflats like pieces of broken mirror, then beyond them lights began in the pale clear air, trembling a little like butterflies hovering a long way off.

Nothing can destroy the good writer. The only thing that can alter the good writer is death. Good ones don't have time to bother with success or getting rich.

He was looking at her from behind the smiling that wasn't smiling but was something you were not supposed to see beyond.

He is thinking quietly: I should not have got out of the habit of prayer.