Nothing is so awesomely unfamiliar as the familiar that discloses itself at the end of a journey. Nothing shakes the heart so much as meeting-far, far away-what you last met at home.

We have had, alas, and still have, the doubtful habit of reverence. Above all, we respect things as they are.

Of comic novels that have quaffed the elixir of 'classic': Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm.

To listen acutely is to be powerless, even if you sit on a throne.

I measure my life in sentences pressed out, line by line, like the lustrous ooze on the underside of the snail, the snail's secret open seam, its wound, leaking attar.

In books, as in life, there are no second chances. On second thought: its the next work, still to be written, that offers the second chance.

One reason writers write is out of revenge. Life hurts; certain ideas and experiences hurt; one wants to clarify, to set out illuminations, to replay the old bad scenes and get the Treppenworte said -- the words one didn't have the strength or ripeness to say when those words were necessary for one's dignity or survival.