To divide one's life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings.

Books act like a developing fluid on film. That is, they bring into consciousness what you didn’t know you knew.

Mr. Faulkner, of course, is interested in making your mind rather than your flesh creep.

A good memory is one trained to forget the trivial.

When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.

A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull, it may be naive, it may be oversophisticated. Yet it remains cheese, milk's leap toward immortality.

I tried to use the questions and answers as an armature on which to build a sculpture of genuine conversation