“I am certain that there are two things in life which are dependable, the delights of the flesh and the delights of literature.”

“I really, sincerely believe that one should trust the work, and not the author.”

“I have often thought it was very arrogant to suppose you could make a film for anybody but yourself.”

“In life there are two things which are dependable. The pleasures of the flesh and the pleasures of literature.”

“The most puzzling thing in the entire encounter occurred at a certain stage very late in the conversation, when she discovered she had been talking to a man. She had the feeling of a dream where things and people transmogrify, characters dissolve from one to the other like tricks in a film, monsters in a bottle. She had the sense, the very distinct sense, of her companion's female gender; she had been pleased to find it, had relaxed into it, had been even more delighted to find it coupled with an elegant wit and a sense of both joy and irony. The forces of life, she thought to herself, are flying high tonight.”

“So do we discover, in the world, that our worst fears are unfulfilled; yet we must fear, in order that we may feel delight.”

“All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones moving easily under the flesh.”