They swallow God without thinking, they swallow country without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them.

As we live we all get caught and torn by various traps. Nobody escapes them. Some even live with them. The idea is to realize that a trap is a trap. If you are in one and you don't realize it, then you're finished.

Gradually I came to realize that my understanding of women goes only as far as the pleasure is concerned.

There's nothing like privacy. You know, I like people. It's nice that they might like my books and all that...but I'm not the book, see? I'm the guy who wrote it, but I don't want them to come up and throw roses on me or anything. I want them to let me breathe.

You are thirty minutes late." "Yes." "Would you be thirty minutes late to a wedding or a funeral?" "No." "Why not, pray tell?" "Well, if the funeral was mine I'd have to be on time. If the wedding was mine it would be my funeral.

Real loneliness is not necessarily limited to when you are alone.

there was something about that city, though it didn't let me feel guilty that I had no feeling for the things so many others needed. it let me alone.