“ Unlike films, plays don't take place in the past. The fear,anxiety of the actors is happening now, in front of you. If performing is risky, we identify with the possibility of granduer and disaster" ("The Body" and Seven Stories).”

“Secrets are my currency: I deal in them for a living. The secrets of desire, of what people really want, and of what they fear the most. The secrets of why love is difficult, sex complicated, living painful and death so close and yet placed far away. Why are pleasure and punishment closely related? How do our bodies speak? Why do we make ourselves ill? Why do you want to fail? Why is pleasure hard to bear?”

“Suddenly I shouted into the night air. 'Yes, yes, yes, it is true!"And now the world had some tension in it; now it twanged and vibrated with meaning and possibility! 'Yes, yes, fucking yes!”

“The girl had many virtues: money, a car--a gold-coloured Capri, in which she played the latest funk--a big house and a rich father. When Valentin asked, 'What does your boyfriend do?' she replied, 'But I don't have one, really.”

“At the deepest level people are madder than they want to believe. You will find that they fear being eaten, and are alarmed by their desire to devour others. ”

“To be well married you have to a penchant for the intricacies of intimacy and larval change..If the personality is a spider's web, you will want to know every thread...Pleasures no longer come to you, but there are pickings to be had if you can learn to scavenge for them" ("The Body")”

“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.”