“Every love story,every commercial trade, every secret, every matter in which trust is involved, is a gentle transaction of hostages. Everything is, to a degree, in the custody of every other thing. Blackmail, kidnapping, then, are among the extreme violations of the deal. Anyway, I seem to be about to have Jim's child; at least, I think I will, and the thing is I haven't mentioned it to Jim.”

“Things have changed very much, several times, since I grew up, and, like everyone in New York except the intellectuals, I have led several lives and I still lead some of them.”

“Hardly anyone about whom I deeply care at all resembles anyone else I have ever met, or heard of, or read about in literature.”

“A rowboat, without oars. An outboard motor. As you can sit there for years, forever, with that outboard motor, pulling again, and yet again, that rope, or cord, or wire, or whatever it is, and winding yet again, and each time, every single time, the motor, though it may give a cough or two, will fail to start, though if it starts, and when it starts, you are, at whatever speed you choose, within the engine's limits and the hazards of the course, well on your way, until it starts you are no nearer where you were going on the fifteenth try than on the first; the enterprise may last forever, and never yet quite begin. The fact seems to be, however, that unless some apparently unrelated event should intervene -- a bullet, a heart attack, a cry from shore that dinner's ready, or company has come, or junior's run away -- the engine will eventually start. In the meantime, though, while you have been intensely busy, it is difficult to account for how the time is spent.”

“I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort.”

“That 'writers write' is meant to be self-evident. People like to say it. I find it is hardly ever true. Writers drink. Writers rant. Writers phone. Writers sleep. I have met very few writers who write at all.”

“I took a little celebrational nap.”