Look at this tangle of thorns. - Vladimir Nabokov

The pale organisms of literary heroes feeding under the author's supervision swell gradually with the reader's lifeblood; so that the genius of a writer consists in giving them the faculty to adapt themselves to that - not very appetizing - food and thrive on it, sometimes for centuries.

We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives.

It is a singular reaction, this sitting still and writing, writing, writing, or ruminating at length, which is much the same, really.