“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.”

“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.”

“I was already at an age when putting off anything was a bad idea.”

“To rehearse imaginary conversations on paper is called literature. To do so out loud is called madness.”

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

“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.”