Art is not in some far-off place.

— Lydia Davis

As long as everything stayed the same, it seemed possible for him to come back. As long as everything was the way he had left it, his place was open for him. But if things changed beyond a certain point, his place in my life began to close, he could not reenter it, or if he did, he would have to enter a new way.

— Lydia Davis

...as long as I felt I had to take some action, I was anguished, and when I gave up all responsibility and stopped trying to do anything at all, I was relatively at peace, even though the earth meanwhile was circling so far below us, and we were so high up in a defective airplane that would have trouble landing.

— Lydia Davis

At a certain point in her life, she realizes it is not so much that she wants to have a child as that she does not want to not have a child, or not to have had a child.

— Lydia Davis

First they burned her - that was last month. Actually just two weeks ago. Now they're starving him. When he's dead, they'll burn him too. Oh, how jolly. All this burning of family members in the summer.

— Lydia Davis

Heart weeps. Head tries to help heart. Head tells heart how it is, again:You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will go, someday. Heart feels better, then. But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart. Heart is so new to this. I want them back, says heart. Head is all heart has. Help, head. Help heart.

— Lydia Davis

I am simply not interested, at this point, in creating narrative scenes between characters.

— Lydia Davis

I can talk for a long time only when it's about something boring.

— Lydia Davis

I copied the address into my address book, erasing an earlier one that had not been good for very long. No address of his was good for very long and the paper in my address book where his address is written is thin and soft from being erased so often.

— Lydia Davis

If they finally move, is it because they are warm enough, or is it that they are stiff, or bored?

— Lydia Davis