I decided to make my living as a magazine writer. And I found that it was really easy and fun.

I don't really do anything with the Internet except check my email. I have a much higher opinion of humanity because of that.

He believed that life, true life, was something that was stored in music. True life was kept safe in the lines of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin while you went out in the world and met the obligations required of you. Certainly he knew (though did not completely understand) that opera wasn't for everyone, but for everyone he hoped there was something. The records he cherished, the rare opportunities to see a live performance, those were the marks by which he gauged his ability to love.

I love telling people what to read. It's my favorite thing in the world, to buy books and force books on people, take bad books away from people, give them better books.

Everyone knows everything eventually.

No one tells the truth to people they don't actually know, and if they do it is a horrible trait. Everyone wants something smaller, something neater than the truth.

He realized now he was only just beginning to see the full extent to which it was his destiny to follow, to walk blindly into fates he could never understand. In fate there was reward, in turning over one's heart to God there was a magnificence that lay beyond description. At the moment one is sure that all is lost, look at what is gained!