Certainly the most diverse, if minor, pastime of literary life is the game of Find the Author.

I'm a fatalist.... I consider I am rejected in principle. My work is and, through my work, I am. If it's accepted, it's miraculous or the result of a misunderstanding.

Pathos truly is the mode for the pessimist. But tragedy requires a nicer balance between what is possible and what is impossible. And it is curious, although edifying, that the plays we revere, century after century, are the tragedies. In them, and in them alone, lies the belief-optimistic, if you will, in the perfectibility of man.

You specialize in something until one day it is specializing in you.

After all the highways, and the trains, and the appointments, and the years, you end up worth more dead than alive.

An idol tells people exactly what to believe, God presents them with choices they have to make for themselves. The difference is far from insignificant; before the idol men remain dependent children, before God they are burdened and at the same time liberated to participate in the decisions of endless creation.

A little man makes a mistake and they hang him by the thumbs; the big ones become ambassadors.