"You say that you hope I will be recognized as the best novelist of my generation. I want you to know now and know completely that that would mean to me absolutely nothing."

"For all practical purposes I left home when I was 7."

"For me, there is nothing worse than the knowledge that my life holds nothing for me but being a writer."

"Irony, I feel, is a very high form of morality."

"A small silence came between us, as precise as a picture hanging on the wall."

"From time to time, I need a rest from the exercitation of my intellect."