Quotes About Author

fragments of a conversation she had left a little earlier (on Rilke, not Rilke's poetry but Rilke the man, who refused to be psychoanalyzed for fear of purging his genius);

I recall a most ingenious piece in a Wisconsin quarterly some years ago in which 'The Recognitions' ' debt to 'Ulysses' was established in such minute detail I was doubtful of my own firm recollection of never having read 'Ulysses.

And someone said, —Nothing queer about Carruthers . . . to conclude, once for all, the story of that subaltern and his mare.

When I began to write fiction that I knew would be published as science fiction, [and] part of what I brought to it was the critical knowledge that science fiction was always about the period in which it was written.

If J.G. Ballard had been on Twitter, I doubt he'd have cat-posted. Wm. S. Burroughs, on the other hand, probably would have. He loved cats. I received Christmas cards from Burroughs. All were cute cat cards.

His ugliness was the stuff of legend. In an age of affordable beauty, there was something heraldic about his lack of it.

Zona spat a stream of Spanish that overwhelmed translation, a long and liquid curse.

He sat on the bed for a long time, savoring the new thing, the treasure. Rage.

Whose apartment is this?" "Marisa's. I told you.

I can't unteach he six years of pity if you can't stand up to one tantrum.

I'm afraid I don't know her," he said, with the slight wince that came when you asked him about music that had come out since his own release. This always made Chia feel sorry for him, which she knew was ridiculous.

but Leon wasn't due any disability. Wasn't, their mother said, like he could claim to have caught the dumbfuck there. Not

I spent the war in Lisbon, you know," Deane said, putting the gun down. "Lovely place, Lisbon.

ego swimming up behind them, to peer at him suspiciously, something eel-like, larval, transparently boned. He had its full attention. "If things had gone differently

And Willy Jude was amiable enough, but in about as content-free a way as possible.

But she still didn't get what the United States did either, in Wilf's world. He made it sound like the nation-state equivalent of Conner, minus the sense of humor, but she supposed that might not be so far off, even today.

Stone killer," said Carlos, like that might be his favorite flavor of pie.

He said they'd been done in by the Beatles, so the food riots hadn't had to happen. The Beatles and losing their own Vietnam.

The yellow Lego was brick-shaped again. Pretending innocence.

We carve history from totalities beyond our grasp. Bolt labels on the result. Handles. Then speak of the handles as though they were things in themselves.

What's that smell?" he asked Molly, wrinkling his nose. "The grass. Smells that way after they cut it.

Ngemi creaks, beside her. "Was he in a better mood, then?" he asks. "He showed me his gun." "This is England, girl," Ngemi says. "People don't have guns.

He gestured for it to sit. The bench vibrated briefly in anticipation, shedding drops of rain. The peripheral sat.

You're a publicist," she said. "She's a celebrity. That's interspecies.