31 Quotes by David Leavitt

I could hear the knock and whistle of the water pipes, the purr of the calico cat. And at that moment a happiness filled me that was pure and perfect and yet it was bled with despair - as if I had been handed a cup of ambrosial nectar to drink from and knew that once I finished drinking, the cup would be withdrawn forever, and nothing to come would ever taste as good.

Novels are forged in passion, demand fidelity and commitment, often drive you to boredom or rage, sleep with you at night. They are the long haul. They are marriage. Stories, on the other hand, you can lose yourself in for a few weeks and then wrap up, or grow tired of and abandon and (maybe) return to later. They can cuddle you sweetly, or make you get on your knees and beg.

When one writer tries to silence another, he silences every writer-and in the end he also silences himself.

L’invisibilità è la qualità fondamentale di un voltapagine: in scena, egli deve cercare di cancellare il più possibile la sua presenza, dando l’impressione che le pagine si voltino da sole. Il voltapagine ha il raro privilegio di sentire un pianista quasi come sente se stesso: sentire il suo canto sommesso, i gemiti che di quando in quando gli sfuggono tra i denti, lo schiocco sordo delle unghie contro i tasti. E non solo sentirlo, ma vederlo; studiarlo.

They were good parents. The worst thing they ever did to us was die.

Assume makes an ass out of you and me.

We all spend so much time worrying about the future that the present moment slips right out of our hands. And so all we have left is retrospection and anticipation, retrospection and anticipation. In which case what's left to recall but past anticipation? What's left to anticipate but future retrospection?

Novels are forged in passion, demand fidelity and commitment, often drive you to boredom or rage, sleep with you at night.

—Lo que más me aterra en este mundo —le dice Neil a Wayne— es la posibilidad de que le destroces la vida a alguien sin tú saberlo. O incluso de que le cambies la vida. Detesto pensar que uno puede tener ese poder, yo sería una madre deplorable.