“A body of work, therefore, reveals the intellectual and emotional progress of the writer, and is a map of his soul. It's both terrifying and liberating to consider this aspect of being a novelist.”

“The progressive intellectualization of language, its progressive conversion by the work of grammar and logic into a scientific symbolism, ... represents not a progressive drying-up of emotion, but its progressive articulation and specialization. ... We are acquiring new emotions and new means of expressing them.”

“He considered music a liberating force: it liberated him from loneliness, introversion, the dust of the library; it opened the door of his body and allowed his soul to step out into the world and make friends.”

“A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure of which he reveals to us the inner workings of his very soul.”

“I acknowledge the privilage of being alive in a human body at this moment, endowed with senses, memories, emotions, thoughts, and the space of mind in its wisdom aspect.”

“What people read revealed so much about them that she considered our card catalog a treasure house of privileged secrets; each card contained the map of an individual’s soul.”