And then they would watch her closely as the dark, coagulated masses took form before her eyes, became flesh and bone, became gradually human. For al….

Desire is an appetite, quickly sated. Longing is a wound, an opening in the heart or the spirit. Whatever the cause, whatever the duration, it almost….

I have found that in fiction one is freer to speak the truth, if only because in fiction the truth is not expected or required. You may easily disgui….

I wanted her body and soul, but body first..

One of the joys of being in love is that it clarifies your priorities. Complication arises from not knowing what you want..

I was already at an age when putting off anything was a bad idea..

All writers are insecure, the male ones especially. It's well known. Why else would they spend so much time on make-believe? They're only happy in th….

To rehearse imaginary conversations on paper is called literature. To do so out loud is called madness..

The future can always wait so long as the here-and-now is rapturous..

The railway was part scalpel, part movie camera, slicing the city open, parading its inner workings at fifty frames per second. It was on the S-Bahn ….

One thing I knew about the novelist’s task: when in doubt, write; when empty, write; when afraid, write. Nothing is more impenetrable than the blank ….

We drank our coffee the Russian way. That is to say we had vodka before it and vodka afterwards..