“We were perfectly decorous together. It took the will of both of us. I trusted him with me, and myself with him.”

“Let's say I find a lot of current American fiction too overwritten for my tastes, too self-conscious; I like something that's simpler and more direct. The story is what matters to me. I hope to make it seem real to readers, as if it happened just like this - so I don't want fancy descriptions getting in the way.”

“Why d’you think she did it?”I told him I had no idea. He seemed disappointed that I shouldn’t know.“A broken heart,” I suggested.“Do people suffer so much?”“For love? Oh, I imagine so.”“To drown herself?”“Why does that astonish you? Dido threw herself on the flames.”“In legend.”“And real life’s different?” I asked.”

“Don’t we have to live a little first? And read later?”

“I’m not just a face, or a body. I’m a Havisham.”

“Experience can never be undone, or knowledge unlearned.”

“Some things belong to the past.”

“We were perfectly decorous together. It took the will of both of us. I trusted him with me, and myself with him.”