It seems, in fact, that the more advanced a society is, the greater will be its interest in ruined things, for it will see in them a redemptively sobering reminder of the fragility of its own achievements. Ruins pose a direct challenge to our concern with power and rank, with bustle and fame. They puncture the inflated folly of our exhaustive and frenetic pursuit of wealth.

Most good thinking has its origin in fear.

It seems the only way to write a half decent book is to worry oneself sick on an hourly basis that one is producing a complete disaster.

Maturity: knowing where you're crazy, trying to warn others of the fact and striving to keep yourself under control.

So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.

Without sex, we would be dangerously invulnerable. We might believe we were not ridiculous. We wouldn't know rejection and humiliation so intimately.

Writing a book has about it some of the anxiety of telling a joke and having to wait several years to know whether or not it was funny.