“I've grieved enough for his life cut short and for mine for running on for so long with so little in it. It's weakness now, but I suppose I am crying out of a general sense of loss. Maybe I am mourning for the human condition.”

“And now I am here, as alone as I've ever been. I am seventeen years old. This is not how it's suppose to be. This is not how my life is suppose to turn out.”

“I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”

“My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so: I am a storyteller.”

“Take all away. I am content to knowSuch love is mine-for life is all too briefTo grieve for pleasures bringing only grief;Give me but You; it is enough just so.”

“I am afraid of death. You are young, so presumably you're more afraid of it than I am. Obviously we shall put if off as long as we can. But it makes very little difference. So long as human beings stay human, death and life are the same thing.”