It now lately sometimes seemed a black miracle to me that people could actually care deeply about a subject or pursuit, and could go on caring this way for years on end. Could dedicate their entire lives to it. It seemed admirable and at the same time pathetic. We are all dying to give our lives away to something, maybe.

Fiction becomes a weird way to countenance yourself and to tell the truth instead of being a way to escape yourself or present yourself in a way you figure you will be maximally likable.

The real irony is that the view of infinity as some forbidden zone or road to insanity - which view was very old and powerful and haunted math for 2000+ years - is precisely what Cantor's own work overturned. Saying that infinity drove Cantor mad is sort of like mourning St. George's loss to the dragon: it's not only wrong but insulting.

A novelist has to know enough about a subject to fool the passenger next to him on an airplane.

The individual's right to pursue his own vision of the best ration of pleasure to pain: utterly sacrosanct.

To be, in a word, unborable.... It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish

Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people (including myself) will approve of me? Is there a difference? How do I ever actually know whether I'm bullshitting myself, morally speaking?