There Are Few Things More Subtly Distressing

Sometimes It Seems That We Might Have Been Happier If We Had Once Had An Aristocracy To Blame Everything On.

Rome Was A Poem Pressed Into Service As A City.

There Are Few Things More Subtly Distressing Than An Inappropriate Gift From Someone Close To You.

I Feel About Lending A Book The Way Most Fathers Feel About Their Daughters Living With A Man Out Of Wedlock.

Sex Almost Always Disappoints Me In Novels. Everything Can Be Said Or Done Now, And That's What I Often Find: Everything, A Feeling Of Generality Or Dispersal. But In My Experience, True Sex Is So Particular, So Peculiar To The Person Who Yearns For It. Only He Or She, And No One Else, Would Desire So Very Much That Very Person Under Those Circumstances. In Fiction, I Miss That Sense Of Terrific Specificity.