He regarded life as a rather odd club of which he had accidentally become a member and from which one could be expelled without reasons having to be supplied. He had already decided to leave the club if the meetings should become all too boring. But how boring is boring?

Through men ... you learn how the world is. Through women you learn what it is.

I am a hindrance to the world, and the world is a hindrance to me.

Conversations consist for the most part of things one does not say.

Language is something you inherit, it's never just you doing the talking, which helps when you're pretending.

He regarded life as a rather odd club of which he had accidentally become a member and from which one could be expelled without reasons having to be supplied. He had already decided to leave the club if the meetings should become all too boring. But how boring is boring?

Man has been thrown into the world. It had always made him think of Icarus and those other great tumblers, Ixion, Phaeton, Tantalus - all these jumpers without parachutes from a world of gods and heroes.