Their life was two things: it was a life, more or less — at least it was the preparation for one — and it was an illustration of life for their child… - James Salter

Solitude. One knows instinctively it has benefits that must be more deeply satisfying than those of other conditions, but still it is difficult.

They had a great deal in common, Bowman a little defiantly said. What they had in common was more vital than similar interests — it was wordless understanding and accord. It was love, the furnace into which everything is dropped.

When was I happiest, the happiest in my life? Difficult to say. Skipping the obvious, perhaps setting off on a journey, or returning from one. In my thirties, probably, and at scattered other times, among them the weightless days before a book was published and occasionally when writing it. It is only in books that one finds perfection, only in books that it cannot be spoiled. Art, in a sense, is life brought to a standstill, rescued from time. The secret of making it is simple: discard everything that is good enough.