“As touchy as cabaret performers and as stubborn as factory machinists....”

“What's remarkable about fiction is that it places you in the unusual position of having no trajectory. You stand aside, motives abandoned for the duration. The characters have the trajectories now, while you just observe. And this stirs compassion that, in real life, is so often obscured by our own motives.”

“What is wrong with guys? Half are molting; half are nothing but undergrowth.”

“I got myself into a tangle. I tied myself in knots. I built and I built–heaven knows I have done that well. Those skyscrapers, full of tenants, floor after floor, and not a single room containing you.”

“So why do you kiss someone?" she asks. "To give pleasure or to take it?”

“Don't people drown their sorrows in things like scotch? Not strawberry whatever-it's-called.”

“Basically, financial reporting is this sinking hole at the centre of journalism. You start by swimming around it until finally, reluctantly, you can't fight the pull anymore and you get sucked down the drain into the biz pages.”