“There were two ways of looking at it: imagining that it was far away and big, in the first place; in the second, that it was small and near. But at any rate, a stupid, hard, brown mountain. How she...”

“but the crime is more important than the punishment. I enliven all of me in my happy instinct for destruction.”

“I ask myself: is every story that has ever been written in this world, a story of suffering and affliction?”

“In the world there exists no aesthetic plane, not even the aesthetic plane of goodness.”

“Where does music go when its not playing?she asked herself. And disarmed she would answer: May they make a harp out of my nerves when I die.”

“Do not mourn the dead. They know what they are doing.”

“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of wi...”

“My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains....”

“If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?”

“Sometimes two people have to fall apart, to realize how much they need to fall back together.”

“Good literature is one key to peace. When we stop reading each other, when we stop paying attention to each other's words and stories, we too easily oppose one another.”

“There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book tak...”