“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”

“I dont go back and look at my early work, because the last time I did, many years ago, it left me cringing. If one publishes, then one is creating a public record of Learning to Write.”

“But that inadequacy, or feeling of inadequacy, never really goes away. You just have to trudge ahead in the rain, regardless.”

“Later I would come to believe that erotic ties were all a spell, a temporary psychosis, even a kind of violence, or at least they coexisted with these states. I noted that criminals as well as the ...”

“Anyone who's read all of Proust plus The Man withour Qualities is bound t be missing out on a few other titles.”

“Where does love go? When something you have taped on the wall falls off, what has happened to the stickum? It has relaxed. It has accumulated an assortment of hairs and fuzzies. It has said "Fuck i...”

“She knew there were only small joys in life--the big ones were too complicated to be joys when you got all through--and once you realized that, it took a lot of the pressure off.”

“Some things in life are too complicated to explain in any language.”

“Love was a lot more complicated when you had a lot of time on your hands.”

“Love it's not supposed to be complicated. It must be easy. It should not need begging and imploring. Love must be simple, because it's just the beginning of a long journey.”

“Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.”

“People dont realize, he said, how important it is to wake up every morning with a song in your heart. J. Krishnamurti. The song stands for a sense of joy in existence, a joy that is free of any goo...”

“It is beyond a doubt that everyone should have time for some special delight, if only five minutes each day to seek out a lovely flower or cloud or star, or learn a verse to brighten anothers dull ...”