As the poet says, all happy couples are alike, it's the unhappy ones who create the stories. I'm no longer a story. Happiness has made me fade into real life.

Forget art. Put your trust in ice cream.

My God, the corruptions of literature. It put all these notions into our heads.

When you break the heart of the philosopher, you must apply great force and cunning strategy, but when the deed is completed, the heart lies in great stony ruin at your feet. If you succeed in breaking it, the job is done once and for all. It will not be repaired.

You are a real find and you keep me satisfied, up to a point. After all, I'm a malcontent and you can't change that.

Needing something is not the same thing as being interested in the thing itself.

What's agitating about solitude is the inner voice telling you that you should be mated to somebody, that solitude is a mistake. The inner voice doesn't care about who you find. It just keeps pestering you, tormenting you--if you happen to be me--with homecoming queens first, then girls next door, and finally anybody who might be pleased to see you now and then at the dinner table and in bed on occasion. You look up from reading the newspaper and realize that no one loves you, and no one burns for you.