One Reads Alone, Even In Another's Presence.

If A Lover Is Wretched Who Invokes Kisses Of Which He Knows Not The Flavor, A Thousand Times More Wretched Is He Who Has Had A Taste Of The Flavor And Then Had It Denied Him.

They Knew Each Other. He Knew Her And So Himself, For In Truth He Had Never Known Himself. And She Knew Him And So Herself, For Although She Had Always Known Herself She Had Never Been Able To Recognize It Until Now.

It Is Only After You Have Come To Know The Surface Of Things ... That You Can Venture To Seek What Is Underneath. But The Surface Of Things Is Inexhaustible.

My Working Method Has More Often Than Not Involved The Subtraction Of Weight. I Have Tried To Remove Weight, Sometimes From People, Sometimes From Heavenly Bodies, Sometimes From Cities; Above All I Have Tried To Remove Weight From The Structure Of Stories And From Language. . . . Maybe I Was Only Then Becoming Aware Of The Weight, The Inertia, The Opacity Of The World--qualities That Stick To The Writing From The Start, Unless One Finds Some Way Of Evading Them.

The More One Was Lost In Unfamiliar Quarters Of Distant Cities, The More One Understood The Other Cities He Had Crossed To Arrive There.