"One alters the past to form the future but there is a real significance to the pattern which finally appears, which resists all further change."

“As his prick goes into her, he discovers the world. He knows the source of numbers, the path of the stars.”

“He seems very mournful, but there is all the winter still to be survived. He no longer lives in years; he is down to seasons. Finally it will become single nights.”

“France is herself Only in the winter, her naked self, without manners. In the fine weather, all the world can love her.”

“A light snow, a snow so faint and small-bodied that it seems nothing more than a manifestation of the cold.”

“I have never been able to write the story. I reach a certain point and cannot go on. The death of kings can be recited, but not of one’s child.”

“The myriad past, it enters us and disappears. Except that within it, somewhere, like diamonds, exist the fragments that refuse to be consumed. Sifting through, if one dares, and collecting them, one discovers the true design.”