“v. It would be very odd if two poets were killed in the same way...May on Lake Asquam, by Jean Giraudoux”

“Well, here we are at the passage. Two steps, Jane, take care of the two steps. Oh! no, there is but one. Well, I was persuaded there were two. How very odd! I was convinced there were two, and there is but one.”

“I cannot stand people who disagree with me on the issue of Roe v. Wade... which I believe is about the proper way to cross a lake.”

“All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And then there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.”

“You may think it odd that there were three men to look after one tiny station, but the people who ran the railway knew that if you left two men together in a lonely place they would quarrel, but if you left three men, two of them could always grumble to each other about the third, and then they would be quite happy.”

“Although citizens of the same country who spoke the same language, they belonged to two different worlds. These worlds were far apart and their chances of meeting slim. But an encounter that happens against such long odds is bound to produce stories.”