“The vocation of each writer is to describe the world as he or she sees it; anything more than that is advertising.”

“Behind every vocation there is a fetish.”

“Yet velvet curtains, soft cheese, compelling work and boys who can run full-tilt—it isn't enough. And if it isn't, it isn't. There's no living with that. The world is made from our imagination; our eyes enliven it, as our hands give it shape. Wanting makes it thrive; meaning is what you put in, not what you extract. You only see what you are inclined to see, and no more. We have to make the new.”

“My guess is that she is uncomfortable in such an intransigent world but is unable to live accordingly to her own desire.”

“But in love each moment is magnified, and every gesture, word and syllable is examined like a speech by the President.”

“One would hope, as well that intimacy would leave more of a mark, that more of it would remain. But it doesn’t. You just end up thinking, who is this person?”

“It was clear that Eleanor had been to bed with a large and random collection of people, but when I suggested she go to bed with me, she said, 'I don't think we should, just at the moment, do you?' As a man I found this pretty fucking insulting.”