“Inevitably we make a small world in the midst of a big one. For a small world is all we know how to make.’p46”

“The world is packed with mistery. We tend to forget this, but itțs still packed tight with it, like water in stone.”

“Forget the boring old dictum "write about what you know." Instead, seek out an unknown yet knowable area of experience that's going to enhance your understanding of the world and write about that.”

“Lev took out a cigarette and stuck it between his lips and the woman sitting next to him a plump contained person with moles like splashes of mud on her face said quickly "I'm sorry but there is no smoking allowed on this bus." Lev knew this had known it in advance had tried to prepare himself mentally for the long agony of it. But even an unlit cigarette was a companion -something to hold on to something that had promise in it -and all he could be bothered to do now was to nod just to show the woman that he'd heard what she'd said reassure her that he wasn't going to cause trouble because there they would have to sit for fifty hours or more side by side with their separate aches and dreams like a married couple. They would hear each other's snores and sighs smell the food and drink each had brought with them note the degree to which each was fearful or unafraid make short forays into conversation. And then later when they finally arrived in London they would probably separate with barely a word or a look walk out into a rainy morning each alone and beginning a new life. And Lev thought how all of this was odd but necessary and already told him things about the world he was traveling to a world in which he would break his back working -if only that work could be found.”

“We may avoid shame if we choose, for shame seldom takes us unawares but has its warning cry, and we can hear that cry as clearly as we can hear the coming of the north wind... The man lying in the mud hadn't heard the coming of the north wind.”

“And she did not want him to think her quite mad, only a little unique, only containing within her just that measure of the unexpected sufficient to make her irreplaceable.”

“How could such a picture be in a national newspaper The model had ridiculous breasts the size of pumpkins and lips fat and wet and all that she was wearing was a spangled G-string.”