There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been.

The soul may ask God for anything, and never fail.

Those of us who read carried around with us like martyrs a secret knowledge, a secret joy, and a secret hope: There is a life worth living where history is still taking place; there are ideas worth dying for, and circumstances where courage is still prized.

I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you.

The mind itself is an art object ... The mind is a blue guitar on which we improvise the song of the world.

Our life seems cursed to be a wiggle merely, and a wandering without end.

The way to learn about a writer is to read the text. Or texts.