“One of the joys of being in love is that it clarifies your priorities. Complication arises from not knowing what you want.”

“All writers are insecure, the male ones especially. It's well known. Why else would they spend so much time on make-believe? They're only happy in their imaginary worlds, because that's where they're in charge - where they're God. Did you know that Hemingway's mother dressed him as a girl until he was six years old?"I was not offended by Claudia's glib psychological theory. Like many glib psychological theories, it struck me as fundamentally correct.”

“I wanted her body and soul, but body first.”

“One thing I knew about the novelist’s task: when in doubt, write; when empty, write; when afraid, write. Nothing is more impenetrable than the blank page. The blank page is the void, the absence of sense and feeling, the white light of literary death.”

“We drank our coffee the Russian way. That is to say we had vodka before it and vodka afterwards.”

“Desire is an appetite, quickly sated. Longing is a wound, an opening in the heart or the spirit. Whatever the cause, whatever the duration, it almost always leaves a scar.”

“The wind funnelled down the covered platform, jostling the passengers and tearing at their clothes. A woman's scarf whipped by overhead, somersaulting as if intoxicated by the sudden taste of freedom.”