You will be stupid. You will worry your parents. You will question your own choices, your relationships, your jobs, your friends, where you live, what you studied in college, that you went to college at all… If that happens, you’re doing it right.

Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.

Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.

Practice, practice, practice writing. Writing is a craft that requires both talent and acquired skills. You learn by doing, by making mistakes and then seeing where you went wrong.

My memory loves you; it asks about you all the time.

I always read. You know how sharks have to keep swimming or they die? I’m like that. If I stop reading, I die.

In a world where people all around us are lying and confusing us, to be honest is a great kindness.

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; the more select, the more enjoyable.

What if I told you I’m incapable of tolerating my own heart?

I am missing you most in the silence between songs on my favourite records. Sometimes it takes so long for the music to start.

I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.

Before I write down one word, I have to have the character in my mind through and through. I must penetrate into the last wrinkle of his soul.

How many times have people used a pen or paintbrush because they couldn’t pull the trigger?